Untitled 1939

Charles G. Shaw made this untitled painting on board with what looks like some kind of distemper or gouache. It's all about the push and pull of the brushstrokes that let you know this wasn't just dreamed up but came from a process. There's a real freedom here, like Shaw was just riffing. The colors are so playful, that sky blue ground with the shapes in yellow and red - it's like a visual jazz solo. And then you have these thin black lines doing their own thing, connecting and dividing like thoughts in a conversation. That big yellow blob, for example, has these lines shooting out. It's almost like a sun, but it's not trying too hard to be one. It's doing its own thing, being a yellow blob with lines, which is kind of perfect. It reminds me of some of Joan Miró’s earlier paintings, with their sense of childlike wonder and playful experimentation. It's proof that art is best when it embraces ambiguity.