Cargo 1958

Conrad Marca-Relli made this painting, titled "Cargo," using canvas collage and oil paint. The creamy ground and high-key yellow and black shapes create a shallow, graphic space. It's the kind of painting that invites you to look closely at how it's made. Marca-Relli builds up the surface with overlapping pieces of canvas, almost like putting together a puzzle. The black marks read as bold graphic shapes. But they are interrupted by the ground so that the eye is forced to read the painting as figure and ground. I love the way he lets the materials speak for themselves; the texture of the canvas, the way the paint sits on the surface. He makes no attempt to hide the process. Marca-Relli makes me think of artists like Kurt Schwitters, who used found materials to create collages that blur the line between painting and sculpture. Ultimately, this piece reminds us that art is an ongoing conversation, where artists build upon the ideas of those who came before them, constantly pushing the boundaries of what art can be.