Claudel:Cinq grandes odes (IV) Comme la mer.... 1986

Maria Bozoky made this watercolour, Claudel: Cinq grandes odes, a modest 24 by 17 centimeters, on paper. The greens are lush but muted, like looking at the sea through a filter, and they seem to bleed into the darker colours, like the deep ocean meeting the sky during a storm. I find myself drawn to the white marks that feel like light glinting off the surface of the water. They’re not quite gestural, not quite representational, but they give the work a sense of depth and movement, as though the sea is in constant flux. Bozoky isn’t afraid to let the watercolour do its thing: drips and bleeds are not only visible but celebrated, as if the process itself is part of the subject. There's something so immediate and intuitive about the way Bozoky works with watercolour here, like a painter thinking on paper. These washes and flicks of color remind me of Joan Mitchell’s more intimate works. Like Mitchell, Bozoky seems to understand that painting is as much about feeling as it is about seeing.