Untitled 1946

Richard Pousette-Dart made this unnamed artwork, probably in the mid-20th century, using paint and maybe some other stuff on what looks like canvas or board. The first thing that grabs you is how he builds up these layers of color and form, kind of like a visual diary where each layer is a day or a thought. Looking closer, you'll notice how he mixes thin washes with thicker, almost scribbled lines. It's like he's both revealing and concealing at the same time. Take that big blue circle near the top; it's not just blue, but a whole world of blues, with tiny figures floating inside. The texture all over is really something, isn’t it? You can almost feel the give and take of the brush, the way he’s pushing and pulling the paint around. This reminds me a little of the work of Hilma af Klint, in its ambition to map inner states of being. But where Klint is cool, Pousette-Dart is warm. It’s a reminder that art is really just a conversation, artists speaking to each other across time and space. It’s not about answers, but about the questions we ask along the way.