Compostion II 1962

Matta made this print, Composition II, using delicate lines and a cool, almost icy, palette. You can almost see the artist hovering over the plate, scratching and etching, letting the acid bite into the metal. It’s a dance of control and chance. I get a sense of Matta juggling different ideas. Is it a landscape? A machine? A dreamscape? Those pink flashes feel so visceral against the cool blues—like a hidden heart, or maybe a wound? There’s a tension here, an energy that vibrates beneath the surface. I think about other artists who were also trying to visualize the invisible like Hilma af Klint or Yves Tanguy. There's something so cool about seeing artists build on each other's work, riffing and remixing ideas across time. Painting’s like that, an ongoing conversation, full of surprises and open ends.