Sour Ball Beat 1964

Gene Davis made this painting, Sour Ball Beat, with stripes of bright colours. These vertical lines of colours are like a dance, a beat, and I like the way they are all different widths. It gives the painting a rhythm, a tempo. I can see how the physicality of the paint interacts with the canvas to produce something that goes beyond mere representation. The surface texture is matte, so the colour really sings. Each stripe is a different colour, and they all play off each other. The eye travels from one stripe to the next, always finding something new to see. It's like the painting is constantly shifting and changing, even though it's static. Agnes Martin comes to mind, another artist who used simple forms to create complex and moving paintings. Art, at its best, embraces these ambiguities, inviting us to see and feel in ways we never thought possible.