The Beach 1969

Balcomb Greene made this painting, ‘The Beach’ – date unknown – using loose, almost washy brushstrokes, kind of like how memories fade at the edges. The whole piece is bathed in this silvery, dreamlike light. Check out how Greene uses thin layers of paint, letting the canvas breathe underneath. It’s like he's capturing the feeling of sun-bleached skin and salty air, not just the scene itself. There’s this one spot, right where the figures meet, a dark smudge that could be shadow or maybe just the paint mixing in an unexpected way. It's a beautiful accident, and it makes you wonder about the relationship between control and chance in artmaking. Greene reminds me a bit of Fairfield Porter, both finding beauty in the everyday, but Greene’s got this extra layer of abstraction. It’s like he’s not just showing us a beach, but also how it feels to be there. And isn’t that what art is all about?