Untitled 7 - 1964

This untitled drawing was made with crayon on paper by Stanley William Hayter in 1964. It's all about gesture, with layers of loose, looping lines in yellow, orange, blue, and purple. I can almost see Hayter making this, his hand moving swiftly across the page, building up a web of color and energy. I imagine he was in his studio, surrounded by tools and materials, thinking about the way one line can intersect with another, how colors vibrate when they're placed side by side. Look at the way the orange overlaps with the blue in the lower half, creating a kind of visual buzz. The lines aren't fixed, but seem to keep on going, like an echo that trails off into space. Hayter was deeply influential, especially in the world of printmaking, and he pushed the boundaries of abstraction. His work always struck me as a reminder that art is about exploration, that it's a way of thinking through feeling.