Komposition Mulem 1959

Carl Buchheister made this painting, Komposition Mulem, with oil paint in his studio, although we don't know exactly when. I imagine him standing in front of the canvas, brush in hand, lost in thought. He's slashing and daubing with black and white, building up this furious, churning surface on top of a peachy ground. See how the strokes feel impulsive, free? It's like he's trying to capture a fleeting thought, a raw feeling, right there on the canvas. It makes me think of Franz Kline's bold, gestural abstractions, but with a kind of sweetness in the palette. The painting is raw, unresolved, but that's the beauty of it. It embraces the unpredictable nature of painting, that ongoing conversation between intention and accident. What I like most is that he lets you see all the decisions he made along the way. It reminds me that every artist is building on the work of those who came before.