Nightfall 1994

Ronnie Landfield made this painting, Nightfall, with luscious colour and a very particular, almost blotted-stain kind of gesture. The paint looks thin, soaked into the canvas, and very liquid. I can imagine Ronnie leaning over the canvas, pouring paint, tilting it this way and that. The kind of stained colour is so particular to a certain moment in the history of painting. It makes me think of Helen Frankenthaler and Morris Louis. And I can imagine Ronnie Landfield in his studio, also looking at their paintings, thinking about what they did, what they didn’t do, and trying to make something new. It’s like the edge of a stain is trying to describe a mountain or a landscape, but is also very committed to being an abstract smear of color, resisting too much association with the real world. Each colour blends into the next. There is a whole conversation between colours and how they make each other sing. Painters are always having conversations with each other, alive or dead, trying to do something that extends the language, push the boundaries, and say something totally new.