High Water Mark 1984

Neil Welliver made this monumental painting “High Water Mark”, which is over eight feet square, by layering brushstrokes and building up blocky, textural surfaces. I imagine Welliver working on this painting, maybe outside, or perhaps he took photos and worked from them in the studio. The paint is applied pretty thinly and with what seems like a dry brush. Look at the way he’s used greens and browns to depict the movement of the water and the rocks beneath. It’s like he’s translated the flow and dynamism into something static, almost architectural. It reminds me a bit of Fairfield Porter, or even Alex Katz, in the way he’s captured a kind of everyday beauty with a sort of flattened, simplified realism. Painters, you know, we’re all looking at each other’s work, riffing off ideas, and pushing the boundaries of what paint can do. We are having a conversation across time and place, and it’s always open-ended and evolving.