Ulysses 1986

Charles Garabedian made Ulysses with acrylic on canvas. Just look at those blues! Can’t you just feel the ocean and the boat tipping back and forth? I’m imagining Charles, in his studio, making this painting, adding layers upon layers, pushing and pulling to get it just right. I love the yellow triangle behind the figure. It's so flat and abstract and really brings him forward. I wonder what Charles was thinking when he put that there? The paint looks thin and washy in places and thick in others, and those lines...so many different kinds of lines. Lines make me think of Cy Twombly’s scribbles, or maybe even some of those early modernist painters, like Matisse. What I like about painting is how it's like a conversation between artists across time. It’s about trying things out, making mistakes, and discovering something new along the way.