Vinter Oppdal 1979

Olivier Debre made this painting, Vinter Oppdal, with what looks like oil paint and a real sense of intuition. The whole thing shimmers with whites, greys and cool blues, laid down in strokes that feel almost accidental. It's a dance between control and letting go. Up close, you can see the way Debre layered the paint, how the brushstrokes build up a kind of terrain. The paint isn't thick, but it isn't thin either, it's like he’s pushing the pigment around, coaxing the image out of the surface, like it’s an emerging form, still coming into being. Look at those dark, almost black patches at the top, sitting on top of some cream. They are heavy, anchoring the lightness below. This reminds me a bit of Agnes Martin, actually, in the way she used abstraction to get at something beyond the visible world. They both understood that art is a conversation, and that we can learn as much from what is unsaid or unseen, as from what is directly represented.