Bathrobe sign 1956

Christo Coetzee made this painting, "Bathrobe Sign," with a real sense of process, you can feel the layers he has put down and the ways they interact. The material aspects here are huge - in a really good way! The texture is key, right? The paint is really built up, thick and opaque in places, but also scraped back to reveal what lies beneath. I see these little black and gold blotches dotted about the surface and I wonder if these are where he has removed paint or added it. The linear movements in the piece suggest the use of a tool to make these marks. This is such a physical process that really shapes the emotional experience of the painting. It's all about the hand. You know, looking at this makes me think of Antoni Tàpies, another artist who wasn't afraid to get down and dirty with his materials and embrace the ambiguity of art.