Still Life (Vase of Flowers) c. 1940 - 1941

Leonard Pytlak made this still life of a vase of flowers, with a green palette. It's all about process. Look at the way the flowers reach out, almost vibrating against the solid color block background. Notice the way the color seems to be built up in layers, like he was finding his way slowly, adjusting and readjusting. It's as if Pytlak is showing us how he arrived at the image, what marks he made in getting there. That sort of reductive technique makes me think of the Japanese artist Onchi Koshiro, who explored abstraction and printmaking, aiming for a pure kind of expression. With both artists, it's not about trying to nail down a specific image, but more about seeing how things come into being. In a way, all art is a conversation about how images are made, and how meaning is constructed through the process.