Reticolo nero diversi blu rosso verso destra 1948

Mario Ballocco made this grid of blues, blacks, and reds, presumably with oil paint and a brush. I can only imagine the number of layers, the back and forth. I love the way the black lines almost act as a stained-glass framework. Ballocco is doing something really interesting here. He creates a rhythm, a set of variations that is like a kind of optical poetry. The surfaces are opaque, each a plane, a shape, not quite fitting together. The blues and blacks and that one little patch of red -- was that his last move? Did he feel like, 'Oh, it needs a little punctuation mark?' It makes me think of Agnes Martin's grids, but where hers are airy and light, Ballocco's feels dense, like a city at night seen from above. Painting is really about the conversation we have with each other across time. It’s inspiring to see how artists build upon and challenge each other's ideas, embracing the uncertainty and ambiguity that makes art so alive.