Untitled 1981

Friedel Dzubas made this untitled painting with washes of diluted acrylic, maybe even magna, on unprimed canvas or paper. I can imagine Dzubas working on this on the floor, pouring the paint and manipulating it with a brush or squeegee. There’s a sense of improvisation, with the colors bleeding and blending into one another. I love the way he creates these horizontal bands of color, like geological strata or atmospheric layers. The big red blob feels like a hot, beating heart, or maybe a gaping wound. The blues, yellows, and grays that surround it are cool and calming, like water and sky. Dzubas’s work reminds me of Helen Frankenthaler’s soak-stain paintings, but with a more structured, almost architectural feel. These artists are all in conversation with one another, pushing the boundaries of what painting can be. It’s like they’re saying, "Let’s see what happens if we just let the paint do its thing."