Blossom Out 1986

Wu Guanzhong made *Blossom Out* with ink and colour on paper. Look at those big black shapes, like Rorschach blots in a garden. You wonder, what was Wu thinking? Maybe about the weight of darkness against the fragility of new growth. The paint is thin, washy in places, then bam!— a solid punch of ink. Like he's mapping out an emotional landscape, or a moment of clarity amidst chaos. I feel for Wu, wrestling with the push and pull of control and chance. All those delicate lines reaching up, like tiny feelers, contrast with the puddles of ink. It's like he’s both composing and letting go, embracing a conversation between intention and accident. The small marks bring to mind Miró, but the starkness and composition are all Wu. Painters are always talking to each other across time, aren’t they? It's about finding your voice, and about what painting can do, how it lets us see the world a little differently.