Untitled 1961

This untitled print was made by Louis Bunce, we don’t have a date but it really resonates with me as a painter, because of the way the artist has allowed the materials to speak. Look at the upper register of marks, the texture! It's like a sandy beach or a torn-up paper collage. The colour palette is earthy, muted, but then those rock-like shapes, set against the black like floating islands, are much smoother. The marks are immediate, not overworked, especially in that hazy middle section with all of the cross-hatching. The print has a tactile quality – you can almost feel the grain of the stone, or the bite of the tool on the plate. The grey bar at the bottom, so flat and solid, anchors all the more ambiguous marks above. You see echoes of artists like Kurt Schwitters here, the master of collage, in the way that Bunce creates a new world from fragments and chance encounters. Bunce doesn’t tell us what to think, instead he gives us a place to dream.