Surf and Bird 1940

Morris Graves made this gouache painting called ‘Surf and Bird’ with a limited palette and a real sense of the stuff it's made of. He works a bit like me, in that you can see the hand, the decisions, and the doing. It’s all process. Up close you see how brown and grey washes become surf and sand. The bird itself is a series of floating shapes, with a definite but naive single eye. It's as though he's captured the feeling of being on the shore - the smell of the briny water, and the eerie cries of the gulls who look at you like they know something you don't. That scumbled white paint around the bird almost looks like he’s scrubbed at the paper, rubbed it back to reveal the grain, making a halo. The painting recalls Odilon Redon. They both have a mystical quality to them, like a symbolist poem, where it’s less about knowing, and more about feeling.