Untitled 2010

Paul du Toit made this unnamed painting with acrylic and mixed media, using bold strokes and a playful arrangement of colors. I wonder what du Toit was thinking, layering those heavy impasto textures in stark black and metallic silver? Then these clean bands of colour – orange, red, yellow, and blue – almost like a child’s stacking toy, but tottering, wobbly. That bright green circle hovers, a kind of rogue halo, and that big eye staring out at us! It’s a little bit scary, a little bit funny. I see echoes of artists like Dubuffet, maybe some Guston in there, too—that raw, direct energy, embracing the awkwardness, not trying to be pretty. Painting can be a form of embodied expression that embraces ambiguity, allowing for multiple interpretations. Du Toit throws all this together, trusting us to make something of it. And maybe he doesn’t even know what it is himself! Which is, you know, part of the fun.