Venus 1980

Walasse Ting made this painting, Venus, with acrylics on canvas, and it feels like a party. The colours are bold, flat and joyful. Look at how Ting uses the paint. He’s not trying to hide the process. It's all about the materiality. There's a real sense of immediacy. You can see the splatters and drips. He's using the paint in different ways, flicks and spots, letting it be itself. I love the contrast between the very flat areas and the textured bits where the paint is dabbed on. Then there are these tiny black lines like pencil marks. It’s this combination of control and looseness that makes it so vibrant. The yellow and green, the pink and blue, the overall effect is a celebration of colour, form and of painting itself. You might look at this and think of Matisse, the colours, the flatness, but Ting is doing his own thing. He's part of a conversation that goes back centuries, but he's also saying something new.