Untitled 1961

Luis Feito made this untitled painting with some kind of brush, or maybe even a rag, and a very paired-down palette of black, white and grey. It’s that kind of painting where the process is right there on the surface. You get the feeling Feito was really thinking through the act of painting itself. Up close, you can almost see the way the brushstrokes drag across the canvas, creating this push and pull between the dark masses and the paler ground. The black is thick and opaque, but then it thins out, becomes almost transparent, like a shadow. Take the mark on the right – see how it’s a solid, grounded form, but then it bleeds out into these delicate, almost ethereal wisps? That tension, between the concrete and the ephemeral, is what really makes this painting sing. Feito reminds me a little of Franz Kline, in his dedication to exploring the expressive potential of simple black and white compositions. But where Kline’s paintings feel bold and assertive, Feito’s have this quiet, contemplative quality. It’s like he’s inviting us to slow down, to really look, and to find our own meaning in the dance between light and dark.