Space X 2002

Jack Armstrong made *Space X* with paint on canvas, we don't know exactly when. I love the all-overness of it. It’s like the painting is trying to simultaneously implode and explode. There's such physicality here, in the splatters and strokes. Look at the way that purple paint seems to scrawl across the surface, like a cosmic scribble. Then notice how the brushstrokes of black paint are laid on top, dragging across the canvas in thick marks, obscuring some of the colors underneath. The overall effect is so frenetic and raw. The layering suggests a real, you know, *process* – that Armstrong’s building up the surface, wrestling with the colors, each stroke responding to the last. It reminds me of some of Joan Mitchell’s later work – that same kind of joyous abandon, but also a sense of something being held back. I see it as a conversation, really. Each artist building on the other's work, pushing it in new directions. That's what art is all about, right?