Standing Male Nude, Unterengstringen 1956

Max Gubler made this nude, probably in Switzerland, and definitely with oil paint. Look at how he’s wrestled with the paint, pushing and pulling it to conjure a figure from a messy dance of color and line. It’s all about the process, isn’t it? See that slash of bright red across the chest? It's so raw, so immediate. It’s like Gubler is saying, "Here's the heart, the life force, exposed and vulnerable." And the way he lets the strokes breathe, so you can practically feel the give and take, the back and forth. The body is a kind of battleground of colour, a raw, exciting space where nothing is certain. Gubler reminds me of Soutine, with that same urgency and passion. But in the end, it is the openness, the embrace of uncertainty, that makes art so compelling. It is a way of seeing, thinking, and feeling that welcomes ambiguity and multiple interpretations.