Untitled 1972

Norman Bluhm made this Untitled painting with bold strokes and a sunny palette, inviting us into the pure act of creation. Look at the materiality here: juicy yellow paint, swathed across the canvas like thick ribbons of light, dances around a core of intense red and black. You can almost feel the artist's hand in those sweeping gestures. The surface is alive with drips and subtle variations in texture, revealing the process of its making. See how the red bleeds into the black, punctuated by those streaks of white? That small area alone is like a microcosm of the painting’s overall energy. Bluhm's work always reminds me a little of Joan Mitchell's, in that both artists use colour and gesture to evoke emotion, creating a space where feeling takes precedence over form. These artists remind us that painting is a playground for the senses, an ongoing experiment, not a quest for some final, knowable truth.