Brise d'Automne 1975

Marcel Barbeau made this painting, Brise d'Automne, by letting loose with color and line, like a jazz solo on canvas. The way he's layered these strokes and splatters, it's all about the energy of making, more than making a picture of something. There's a cool mix of controlled chaos here. You've got these deliberate, almost architectural strokes of red, playing against this wild spray of black dots and lines. It feels like Barbeau was chasing something, maybe a feeling, and the painting is a record of that chase. It’s like he’s using the paint to capture not just what he sees, but how it feels to be in the middle of it all. Take a look at one of those thicker lines of red. See how it kind of pulses, almost vibrating against the white? That’s where the painting really comes alive for me. It makes me think of Joan Mitchell and her crazy, beautiful color explosions, a reminder that painting is, at its heart, a conversation between artists and their materials, a way of talking about the world without having to say a single word.