Green Melt 1966

Thomas Downing made this, Green Melt, by who-knows-what means. I mean, sure it's paint, but how did it get like that? I imagine this was a trial and error process. The circles aren’t perfect, and the green has been built up in layers to create depth. I can imagine the artist thinking, “What if I put a circle here? And here?” It’s almost like a face, but not quite. The paint is thin, almost like a stain. Downing might have been interested in flatness, or maybe he was just trying to make the green as vibrant as possible. It reminds me a bit of some of the color field painters, but also a bit of Op Art. We, as artists, are always stealing from each other, riffing off each other's ideas, whether we know it or not. With painting, especially, there's always an element of chance, of letting the material lead you. And the best thing, that it is always open to interpretation.