Untitled 1960

This untitled work by Alexandre Istrati is a dance of ink and color on paper, a testament to artmaking as an unfolding process. The material qualities are what grab me here - thin washes of color bleed into the paper, creating soft, atmospheric effects, while nervous, dark lines crawl across the surface, building up a sense of depth and complexity. See how the blue pools in the middle ground hint at a landscape, but then dissolve into pure abstraction? It’s like Istrati is showing us the very act of seeing, the way our minds try to make sense of the world, grasping for forms that always slip away. I see echoes of artists like Wols in Istrati’s work, those European artists who were figuring out what it meant to make art after so much destruction and trauma. Maybe art isn't about answers, but about embracing the messy, unresolved questions.