Bouche Sperdument 1956

Modest Cuixart’s painting, is kind of like a big, earthy mouth made with layered marks and a palette of browns and creams. I imagine the artwork came to life slowly, with Cuixart layering, scraping, maybe even erasing to find its form. Looking at this, I can’t help but think of him, brush in hand, trying to capture something slippery and ambiguous. The paint looks thin, almost like a stain. I imagine him wiping at it, dragging the color across the surface to make these marks, these nervous lines that suggest a mouth or maybe something else entirely. There's a single white dot, like a pearl, or a tooth? It reminds me a little of Antoni Tàpies, also from Barcelona; they’re both digging into the dirt of painting, trying to find something real and raw. This piece feels like part of a conversation between artists about what painting can do, how it can feel, and what it can mean. It’s not fixed, it’s always moving, always changing in our minds.