Untitled 1979

Joan Mitchell made this painting, with oil on canvas, at an unknown date. The way she attacks the canvas, the pure physicality of those strokes, it’s all about the doing, the making, the *process*. Look at how the paint sits on the surface – thick in some places, almost transparent in others. It's like she’s wrestling with the material, pushing it around to see what it can do. I'm drawn to the strokes of pure yellow, orange and lavender that seem to drip and dance down the canvas, each one a record of her hand, her energy, her very presence. They're not just colors; they're feelings, emotions, raw and unfiltered. Mitchell reminds me of de Kooning, that same sense of urgency and freedom. But there's something else too, a kind of tenderness, a vulnerability that peeks through the bravado. In the end, it is all about questioning: allowing for doubt, open-endedness, and the possibility of multiple meanings.