Bird in the Spring 1992

Richard Pousette-Dart made this painting, Bird in the Spring, using many colours and gestures to create an overall effect. It looks like he’s built up the surface with layers of dabs and dots, a real testament to process. Up close, you can see how the physicality of the paint really shapes your experience. It's not just flat color, but an accumulation of touch. Look at the way the blues and yellows sit together, like some kind of primordial soup, and how that red peeks through. You can almost feel the energy of his hand moving across the canvas, each mark a little decision, a little burst of energy. Each of those marks relates to the whole, creating an image that shimmers. Pousette-Dart reminds me of other process based artists like Joan Mitchell, who create images that aren't about one thing, but about the joy of painting itself, the kind of art that embraces ambiguity.