Magical Space Forms 1951

Lorser Feitelson made this painting, Magical Space Forms, with smooth strokes of pigment and big shapes, probably sometime in the mid-20th century. The painting is broken into areas of flat colour, so you can see the weave of the canvas right up close. I wonder what it was like for him to make this? Did the blue shape come first? Or did he fill in the purple background to carve out the biomorphic form? It's a curious image, really. It has a graphic simplicity, but the colours are moody and saturated. That periwinkle blue feels so Californian, like David Hockney’s swimming pools, or the light in a Wayne Thiebaud painting. And that slightly desaturated aubergine, like the colour of dusk. It feels familiar but also out of reach, as though he conjured up an alternative world. I feel that in my own work, too. It's a kind of conversation between painters.