Abstract Expressionist Autumn Sky 1953

Audrey Flack made this "Abstract Expressionist Autumn Sky" with paint, but it's more than just paint; it's a record of her movements. I love how Flack's put down these marks. They're like these little pats of color, yellow, orange, brown, with these white zigzags cutting through. It's like she's thinking about how we see, how our eyes jump around, making sense of things. Up close, you can almost feel the texture, the way the paint sits on the surface, thick in some spots, thin in others. It makes me think of artists like Joan Mitchell, who are also wrestling with how to translate feeling into color and form. There's this one little patch of orange in the lower left, and it's like a tiny sun, pulling all the other colors into orbit. Ultimately, this painting is all about the messiness and beauty of seeing, and the never-ending conversation that artists have with each other across time.