Poet in Exil 1946

Victor Brauner made this painting, Poet in Exil, and it feels like it was made with a real sense of play. The colours are earthy, but also kind of vibrant, like a kid's drawing, and the shapes are simple, geometric, almost cartoonish. I’m really drawn to the texture of the paint – it looks thick in some places, and in others almost scrubbed away, revealing the surface underneath. You can see the hand of the artist in every mark, every brushstroke. There's a kind of rawness to it that I find really appealing. It’s like Brauner is saying, "Here it is, the process, the struggle, the joy of making something out of nothing." Look at the way he’s handled the face – the eyes are just big circles, but they have this intense, staring quality that’s both funny and unsettling. Brauner reminds me a bit of Paul Klee, in the way he uses simple forms and colors to create these weird, dreamlike images. But where Klee is often more delicate and refined, Brauner is rougher, more visceral. Art’s an ongoing conversation, and Brauner’s right in the thick of it.