Untitled 1960

Manoucher Yektai made this painting with oil paint, somewhere, sometime, who knows? I love how the paint is built up, layer upon layer, like sediment, or strata. Look at the top right, see how the white paint is dragged downwards, almost blurring into the lower ground? I can imagine Yektai standing in front of the canvas, physically pushing the paint around with a big brush, maybe even a palette knife. The materiality of the paint is so present here; you can almost feel the weight of it. It's this physicality that gives the painting its emotional punch. The energy in Yektai’s paintings reminds me of Joan Mitchell, but maybe with a quieter kind of intensity. It’s like he's having a conversation with the paint, and we're lucky enough to eavesdrop. It's a reminder that art isn't about answers, it's about the questions we ask along the way.