Red Earth 2018

Vincent Xeus made this untitled diptych, Red Earth, with a dedication to gesture as process. The layered strokes of orange and rust, dragged horizontally across the top halves, bring to mind the feel of sunset through dusty air. Look at the white band that sits beneath, a single brush stroke, and how the paint bunches up in places and thins out in others, creating subtle shifts in tone and texture. Xeus is really good at editing. He is willing to leave stuff on the canvas that other artists might consider mistakes, but these imperfections become the painting. There’s a freedom to this work that reminds me of Joan Mitchell; the lack of a horizon line, and the way the forms seem to float and shift. A painting like this challenges the very notion of fixed meaning. It’s a conversation, an open-ended exploration, where the possibilities are endless.