Color Abstraction 1967

Robert Goodnough’s Color Abstraction, made with paint on canvas, is like a vibrant constellation of feelings suspended in mid-air. Imagine Goodnough in his studio, brush in hand, coaxing these colorful shapes into existence one by one, each a little world of its own. There’s a lightness here, a sense of play, as if the colors themselves are dancing across the canvas. It reminds me of a garden after a rain, all bright and glistening. Those dark outlines, they’re like the garden’s skeleton, holding everything in place while still letting it breathe. It makes you think about the physicality of painting, right? How the artist's hand guides the brush, leaving its trace on the surface. And those hues, they don’t just sit there; they mingle and chat, creating new sensations, new possibilities. Goodnough was part of a generation wrestling with how to make painting new, and he did it by letting his intuition lead the way, and by making it feel like one big conversation. You can feel the energy of the artist, and the history of painting, all rolled into one. The conversation continues.