Mare 2001

Russ Warren made this painting, Mare, with what looks like acrylic on board and it's got this fantastic, almost feverish energy. It's art that feels like a verb, y'know? The colors are earthy but intense – ochre, orange, and black – with these zinging white lines cutting through. Zoom in and check out the surface texture, it's rough, built up, you can almost feel the hand of the artist scraping and layering. The black lines are like a frantic scribble, barely containing the energy underneath. They remind me of Cy Twombly's work, but with a kind of folksy twist. Look at how the yellow seeps through the black lines and creates a strange transparency, like light shining through a storm. For me, this piece is about the messy, chaotic process of creation. It's not about perfection, but about the raw, untamed power of expression.