Quinlan 1972

James Brooks made this painting, Quinlan, with big, brave strokes of the brush. I can imagine him, standing back, squinting, adding a daub of white to the orange, and then slashing that confident black down the middle! What do you think he was thinking? What sort of mood do you think he was in? The red feels super confident and almost wants to jump off the canvas, and then there is that thin blue line – like a nervous tick! Maybe it's a history painting in disguise! He was influenced by surrealism so it's not surprising this is like a dreamscape. All of us painters are in conversation with one another, riffing off each other’s visual languages. It’s a process of exchange that keeps painting alive.