Weather Vane c. 1938

Frank Gray’s ‘Weather Vane’ is a watercolor on paper, of a sculpture of a horse. Imagine him in his studio, trying to capture the essence of this object. The horse, forever caught mid-stride, painted in muted browns and greens, looks like a memory or a ghost of a horse. The horse’s body is filled with irregular marks and patches of dark paint that give it a sense of depth and texture. What I love about this is how Gray embraced the imperfections, the drips, and the smudges, allowing the painting to have its own life. You can feel the artist’s hand moving across the paper. It’s like he’s asking, "How can I create a sense of movement and energy within a still image?" The thin, washy paint creates a sense of lightness, as if the horse is barely touching the ground. And the horizontal line, anchoring the horse to the base, has a purpose. It connects the artwork to folk art practices that other artists have explored and reinterpreted in their own ways. Ultimately, Gray is showing us that painting is a way of thinking, of feeling, and of connecting with the world around us.