The Great Gretzky 1981

LeRoy Neiman made this of, who I assume is The Great Gretzky, with paint, though when exactly, is lost to time. What strikes me is how Neiman translates movement into static paint. Look at the materiality here, the way the thick paint sits right on the surface, capturing a sense of immediacy, as if the work was made in the heat of the moment. The painting isn’t trying to imitate reality, but, like, *become* it through a process of layering and mark-making. There’s this spot, just above Gretzky’s left shoulder, where the blue smears into the white, a real gestural passage. It's as if Neiman is saying, ‘Here’s the energy, here’s the blur of the game.’ Neiman reminds me of someone like Joan Mitchell, both artists pushing the limits of paint to evoke feeling and motion, and both understanding that a painting is never really finished, just abandoned at some point. It’s about the conversation between the artist, the paint, and the subject, a constant back-and-forth that ends up being more about the journey than the destination.