Bracket 1989

Curator: Here we have Joan Mitchell’s *Bracket*, completed in 1989. It’s a mixed media work, primarily acrylic paint on canvas, and the triptych format allows for an expansive exploration of color and form. Editor: Immediately, I notice the scale and raw energy, the thick impasto, and the way those brushstrokes carve out a very particular kind of space. Curator: It’s an interesting comment, the way those gestures work materially on the surface and engage an art historical trajectory linked to the handmade. Editor: Right. Looking closely, you can see Mitchell layered strokes with incredible force; there’s a push-pull between gesture and substance here. There’s no attempt to conceal process – in a lot of ways, the action is the work. Curator: Yes, and within this layered and seemingly spontaneous action, we discern underlying formal structures. For example, note how Mitchell uses colour relationships—those blues against browns—to establish a dynamic tension across all three panels. The eye reads an abstract topography, or even atmospheric density, constructed primarily through contrasting hues. Editor: True. The work’s creation seems incredibly physical; it is almost a dance with the material itself and, given its impressive scale, evokes a distinct atmosphere for viewing. I’m drawn into considerations about the labor, time and physical requirements behind each brushstroke, too. Curator: We can speculate on how that performative element translates into compositional effects and then conceptual meaning. Think of that expansive white serving as an underlying tone to project a stark field in counterpoint with colour itself, not as backdrop, but an assertive protagonist. Editor: So, *Bracket*, more than simply a visual composition of gestural brushstrokes, functions almost as a record. I keep returning to this notion that Mitchell documented the tangible realities that shaped it through means of the laborious creative effort that was involved. Curator: Indeed, whether considered structurally or as record, *Bracket* ultimately achieves, it provides an example of how form and material shape one another in powerful and exciting dialogue. Editor: A lasting tribute to both the artist's touch, and the material conditions that gave that touch its form.