Untitled 1961

Charlotte Posenenske made this untitled artwork with paint and paper, and I can imagine her process as a dance between control and chance. It is an act of arranging and rearranging, of shifts and erasures, of intuition and intention. Look at those dominant blue strokes and rectangular shapes against the creamy off-white background. I imagine Posenenske experimenting, improvising, maybe even making up a game for herself. She probably layered the colours one over the other, making decisions as she went. It makes you wonder what the paper looked like before the blue shapes landed, what was there before? That big, bold stroke near the center looks almost like a beam of light. It feels confident, yet somehow also vulnerable, don’t you think? We painters are always in conversation with one another, whether we know it or not. Posenenske's work reminds me of other artists who embraced simple shapes, like Ellsworth Kelly. Each of them, in their own way, inspires us to see the world with fresh eyes. It’s like they are saying: Hey, let’s not take ourselves too seriously; let’s just try things out.