Untitled 1965

This is a painting by Angelo de Sousa, made with paint on canvas. It's dated 1965. I can imagine de Sousa in his studio, layering these colours and shapes on the canvas. He’s got oranges, reds, greens and pinks. The paint is applied in blocks and each colour seems to be fighting for space. I think he probably applied one colour, and then responded to that with another. It’s a process of call and response, like two people having a conversation. There's this thick green outline that creates structure but also contains the tension. You can see this push and pull in other abstract painters such as Howard Hodgkin, who also embraced intuitive ways of working. For de Sousa, as for many of us, painting is a form of embodied expression, an ongoing experiment. Each mark holds its own weight and feeling. It’s not about answers, but about embracing the questions.