Sedalia, North Carolina 1929

Beauford Delaney made this watercolour, Sedalia, North Carolina, sometime in 1929. The greens and blues here are amazing, shifting and emerging through intuition. I can imagine Delaney outside, in this scene, maybe with his paints and easel. There's a figure in the doorway, and lots of foliage. What's the scene about? It feels like a portrait but in a landscape setting, with a sense of someone at home, a quiet moment of daily life. The paint is thin and watery, so it's as if the colors are barely there. The light and shade that comes through the gestures of the trees and other foliage bring feeling and meaning. Delaney's approach to painting makes me think about other painters who work between abstraction and representation, who try to make visible the invisible forces of light, color, and feeling. I think of painters like Georgia O'Keefe and Agnes Martin. Artists are always in conversation, inspiring one another. I admire how Delaney embraces ambiguity and uncertainty. The many interpretations and meanings he leaves within this painting are the gifts he leaves us.