Red Black on Grey 1971

John Hoyland made "Red Black on Grey" with paint, sometime during his lifetime. Look at how the grey is like a sky, almost atmospheric, and then BAM those blocks of color crash into the foreground. Hoyland's not trying to hide the process, is he? The paint is flat but the splatters are like these bursts of energy, little explosions. I love that contrast. The texture isn't about thick globs of paint; it's more about the colors bumping up against each other. See that red block? How it sits on the grey, but also kind of bleeds into that gold outline? It's like Hoyland is saying, "Hey, I'm making a painting," and then also saying, "But what IS a painting, anyway?" This reminds me a bit of Helen Frankenthaler's soak-stain paintings. It shows how artists are always in conversation, riffing off each other, trying to figure out what this whole art thing is all about.