The Three Members 1972

Desmond Morris made this painting, “The Three Members”, and I’m instantly drawn to the way he’s built up the surfaces. The paint has a real heft to it. The shapes are rounded, almost sculptural, like he's modeling clay. They remind me of Philip Guston's late work, but with this eerie biological quality. Look at the central figure, that pinkish mound with the dark asterisk-like mark. It's both playful and unsettling. There's a tactile quality to the surface that makes you want to reach out and touch it. I love how the strangeness of the forms sits against the way they’re rendered, like a 3-D cartoon. It’s like Morris is inviting us to explore the outer limits of figuration, to revel in the beauty of the bizarre. And that, to me, is what art is all about: embracing the weird and the wonderful.