From Thoughts of Alchemy 1947

Boris Margo conjured up this painting, ‘From Thoughts of Alchemy’, with oil on canvas. It’s like looking into the artist’s mind; a space of open experimentation, a laboratory of abstract forms. I see these dominant yellow rays shooting out, meeting shapes suggesting scientific instruments. The colours are muted, like they’ve been aged by time, each stroke layered with the kind of intention you only get from working through an idea over and over. You can see the push and pull of the brush, feel the artist making decisions, changing their mind, as they went. I can imagine Margo, brush in hand, trying to capture these elusive thoughts, the feeling of alchemy, of transformation. It reminds me a bit of Kandinsky, or maybe even some of the surrealists, trying to make the invisible visible. It’s all about the process; the adventure of painting itself.