Diffuse 2 2014

Qin Yufen, born in 1954, made "Diffuse 2" with energetic sweeps and layered washes of blue, pink and yellow. Imagine the studio, the air thick with the smell of acrylic, as Qin approached the canvas, maybe wrestling with a feeling or idea. The painting itself is a record of this struggle, this dance. Look at the way the colors bleed and blend, creating soft, almost watery effects. The blue drips down like rain, while the pink hovers like a cloud. Then there's the yellow, cutting through with the bright clarity of sun. It reminds me of Helen Frankenthaler’s soak-stain paintings, where color becomes one with the canvas. Notice the grid-like structure. The canvas is activated by the memory of a geometric space that the artist then almost obliterates in the act of painting. This tension embodies painting's long history while embracing the new. Artists today build on the past, and in turn offer us new ways of seeing.