Untitled 1996

Michel Majerus made these untitled paintings with paint, probably acrylic, to make these very different marks. The painting on the left is so simple, a horizontal bar laid on top of a lovely ground of minty green, but the mark-making in the bar is very expressive. The bar itself is made up of layered strokes, a bit haphazard, loose. Compared to the painting on the right, which is like a collision of color and form, the painting on the left is almost stoic. Look how the forms are built up with layers of translucent paint and how the brushstrokes dance across the surface. There's a real conversation going on between the two canvases, a kind of call and response. These works remind me of Albert Oehlen, who also embraces the messy and the unexpected. These paintings revel in the joy of painting, where the process is just as important as the final product.