Blue Dusk 1980

Jacob Kainen made "Blue Dusk" with a sheet of paper and some paint. It looks like he approached the piece with a plan, but at the same time remained very open. The color is thinned, like watercolor almost, brushed on in broad vertical strokes that reveal the texture of the paper underneath. Look at the way that blue-grey color pools and bleeds – it feels like a mood. Then, these little spots of reddish-brown, like rust, are splattered on the surface – what are they doing there? And the strange, opaque rectangle placed slightly off center. Each mark, each color seems to suggest a different kind of space. Kainen was a contemporary of the Abstract Expressionists, but his paintings have a quieter, more meditative quality. His work reminds me of Agnes Martin, in its exploration of subtle color and understated form. It's a good example of how a piece can be both simple and complex at the same time, and how art often invites us to linger in ambiguity.