Tissue Tear Series: Untitled 1975

Joe Goode made this painting, part of his Tissue Tear series, with paint on canvas, but it looks like so much more. It has such a cool, calm palette. You can see these actual tears in the painted surface, like you could just reach out and peel the paint back yourself. The physicality of the medium is so present, it’s like Goode is right there, encouraging us to think about paint not just as something that represents an image, but as a thing in itself. I like the way that the texture contrasts with the flat, almost blank areas, the way the light from below seems to be pushing the canvas from behind. It reminds me a bit of Lucio Fontana's slashed canvases, that same feeling that you’re looking through the painting into another space. But maybe, as in all good art, it’s just paint being paint, suggesting a million things without ever settling on one.