Green Melt 1966

Thomas Downing made this 'Green Melt' painting with a cool detachment, but the result is anything but. The color is a saturated, almost acidic green, applied in thin layers that let the texture of the canvas peek through. Look closely and you can see faint circles ghosting behind the two colored dots, their edges soft and blurred like something seen through a heat haze. The two dots themselves, one blue and one greenish, are perfect circles, outlined in white, sharp against the haziness behind, and the green is pulled in a thin wash over both. There's something about the way the green is painted, so flat and even, like a painted wall. It reminds me a little of Agnes Martin, not in terms of style, but in the way that it invites you into a space of pure sensation. It’s a reminder that art is always in conversation with itself, a constant back-and-forth between intention and accident, control and release.