Light Gray - Tan 1978

Robert Goodnough made this lovely painting, "Light Gray - Tan", with what looks like acrylic or maybe thin oils, playing with repetition and subtle shifts in tone. The whole thing has a sense of the hand, of process. Look at how Goodnough layers these tiny, almost feather-like strokes of white and light gray. Each mark is distinct, but together they form this cloud-like shape. The paint isn’t thick or showy; it’s more like a whisper. Then there's the creamy, tan background, a quiet foil that lets the white marks really sing. I love how you can almost feel him making those marks, one by one. It's methodical, but also playful, like he's building up a flock of birds or a field of wheat, one tiny stroke at a time. This painting feels so connected to the work of someone like Agnes Martin, or maybe even some of the early minimalists. It's about finding beauty in simplicity, and poetry in repetition, but without being boring. It’s a celebration of the ongoing conversation that art has. It doesn’t need to be loud to be profound, you know?