Untitled 1969

Mark Rothko made this, a large sheet of colour, sometime in the mid twentieth century. Look at the way that burgundy sits on top of the apricot ground. You can almost feel the weight of the paint, how it's been coaxed and layered into being. I can imagine Rothko in his studio, wrestling with these huge blocks of colour, trying to find the right balance, the right resonance. It must have been terrifying, exhilarating, like walking a tightrope. Look at the texture, the subtle variations in tone and density, the way the edges blur and dissolve. It’s like a portal into another dimension, or maybe just a mirror reflecting our own messy, complicated emotions back at us. The whole history of painting seems to be here—this feels like a conversation with Matisse, maybe, or even Titian. Rothko is in dialogue with all of them. He shows us that painting is never really finished, just a continuous process of becoming.