Blue Baleen 1987

Dan Christensen made this painting, Blue Baleen, with, I'm guessing, acrylic on canvas - though I'd need to get closer to know for sure. There's something so elemental in this approach to mark making. It's like the painting is breathing, or maybe it's a landscape turned on its side, the horizon stretching and contracting. Look at how the paint is applied, not thick, but juicy, with a kind of transparency, so the colors glow from within. I can almost feel the motion of his hand, each stroke a little different from the last. It's like he's not just painting lines but recording a whole series of movements. And that deep blue, almost black, against the pinkish white – it gives the whole thing this moody, but tender feeling. I'm reminded of Agnes Martin's grids, but here there's more looseness, more room for the hand to wander. It's a reminder that painting is always a conversation, a call and response across time and space.