Rodeo 2005

Richard Hambleton made this painting, Rodeo, with slashing strokes and a monochrome palette. It's a wild ride of black and white, and the image barely emerges from the ground, like a photograph in the developing fluid. I can imagine Hambleton, splattering and smearing paint in his studio, trying to capture the energy and the chaos of the rodeo. The paint looks thin, so I bet he was building up the image in layers. See how the sweeping strokes communicate the horse’s movement, and the rider struggling to hold on? You can almost feel the buck and sway of the animal. It’s a pretty visceral experience. Hambleton’s ghost-like figures remind me of some of Marlene Dumas's figures, but they are much more frenetic. Painting is like having a conversation with other artists, even across generations, riffing off what came before. For Hambleton, I bet painting was a way to engage with risk, ambiguity, and the sheer messiness of being alive.