Karelia 1969

Petros Malayan probably mixed watercolor with gouache to make this image of Karelia, a region in Russia. Look at the thin washes of color, the way the buildings and the landscape are built up from layers. I’m thinking about what it would have been like to stand there and make the painting, to capture the light hitting the snow in the foreground. See how Malayan used a reddish pigment to map out a path? I can imagine the painter thinking, "How do I make this space recede?" It’s kind of like when I am in the studio, and I'm working on a painting, and I don't know what I'm doing. I just keep going, keep adding, keep changing. It’s that process of inquiry through material means, which I think he's doing, too. He is showing us a way of seeing, and a way of thinking about how space is created, not just in representation, but in our minds, as well.