Toward a Red 1975

Sam Gilliam made this with what looks like acrylic paint in a hot furnace of yellows and oranges. There's a simmering energy here, like the painting came into being through its own internal combustion! I sympathize with the artist trying to wrangle these colors, pushing them around the canvas, finding a composition that lets them breathe. Look at that one spot of red—a brave little gesture that holds its own amidst all that sun-drenched heat. I imagine Gilliam standing back, squinting, maybe muttering to himself, deciding where to stoke the fire and where to let it cool. I see echoes of Turner’s sublime landscapes here, but Gilliam's got his own thing going on. He’s part of a lineage, for sure, this ongoing conversation among painters across time. Each one throwing their own fuel onto the fire. Ultimately, it’s us, the viewers, who get to bask in the glow.