Blue-02 1916

This is Georgia O’Keeffe’s Blue-02, a watercolor on paper, and the blues are just so alive. It feels like O'Keeffe is really playing, like she's trying to find out what blue can do. The paper is so delicate, almost like skin, and you can see how the water blossoms and blooms into it, making these soft, fuzzy edges. Look closely at the shapes, how they bleed into one another, how watery they are. The darker strokes at the bottom feel so solid, like marks that have been laid down with a purpose, while the circles at the top are much more loose. It's as though she's testing the boundaries, seeing what happens when the water takes over. O’Keeffe’s contemporary, Marsden Hartley used the same colour to portray the inner emotion, and it's a great example of how artists talk to each other across time, using the same tools but saying something completely different.