Creek Square 1974

Joan Snyder made Creek Square with paint, and a real sense of freedom. The top section feels like a landscape remembered in a dream, soft muted washes and spontaneous gestures contrast with that strong orange square, floating like a sun. Below, a grid emerges, grounding the work. Each square is a little world of its own, thick impasto contrasting with thin glazes, like an alchemical experiment with color and texture. My eye keeps going back to the lower right, to that patch of olive green giving way to black, it's like a little void. In a way, the painting as a whole is a conversation between the lyrical and the structured, the intuitive and the deliberate. Snyder’s work reminds me a little of Mary Heilmann, the way both artists embrace a kind of joyful awkwardness, allowing the process to dictate the form, proving that painting can be both raw and refined, messy and meaningful, all at once.