Dewy Unicorn 1972

Sam Francis made this painting, Dewy Unicorn, with loose gestural marks and a bright, vivid color palette. It’s an all-over composition of thrown, dripped, and splashed paint. I like to imagine Francis in his studio, moving around the canvas, letting the paint fall and spread, like a dance. I wonder if he felt like he was conjuring a world, the way the Abstract Expressionists did. What was he thinking as he made it? Maybe about Monet’s waterlilies, but turned up to eleven? Look at the way the colors interact. The reds, blues, and yellows create a sense of depth and movement, like a cosmos of pigment. See that concentrated mass of black pigment at the upper center, how it is offset by dots and splatters of white? It's a dynamic and exciting visual experience. Francis is in a constant conversation with the history of painting. The longer you look, the more you see, the more it invites you in.