Untitled 2012

Paul du Toit made this untitled painting with thick, textured strokes, like he’s building up a surface as much as he’s making an image. It’s about the joyful, messy process of painting itself. The paint is really built up and sculptural - look at how the red seems to almost float off the canvas, and the way the lines are kind of wobbly and uneven. The blue outlining the head is so clumsy, it becomes the painting's most important element. You can almost feel the artist’s hand moving, the pressure of the brush, the decisions made and remade. It's like you can see him wrestling with the paint right there on the canvas. This piece reminds me of Karel Appel, and other CoBrA artists in the way it combines primitive, childlike imagery with a really sophisticated understanding of color and form. In the end, it feels good because it's about the pure joy of making marks and letting them be what they want to be.