Raysseland 1965

Martial Raysse made Raysseland, and just look at that paint! Those hues of pink and blue make the image vibrate, don’t they? It’s like he's thinking about how colors can change our experience of the world. It is like Raysse has really layered up the paint. Some areas are thin, almost like watercolor, then he builds it up into thick impasto in other areas. If you look closely at the antlers, you can almost see the bristles of the brush left in the paint. It's like he's not trying to hide the fact that this is made of paint on a surface, and it is like the paint becomes the thing itself, a kind of translation of the world, but with a focus on surface. Raysse reminds me of Elizabeth Murray. Both artists play with form and colour, testing painting’s potential to extend beyond the purely visual. It makes you think about the endless conversations happening across time between artists, each bringing something new to the mix.