God 1990

This is Bo Bartlett’s painting, God. And I’m thinking about the work that went into making it. It’s like the painting itself came into being, shifting, emerging through trial, error, and intuition. I sympathize with Bartlett. I can imagine what it might have been like to create. What was he thinking when he made it? The surface of the painting is smooth and dreamy. The man is looking down, with a heavy quilt around him. It is a symbol for something, maybe home, maybe the comfort of the domestic. I think about the color of the quilt, the small red squares against the dark green. It is clear Bartlett has had a long conversation with the history of American painting. Artists are always in an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time, inspiring one another’s creativity. Painting is a form of expression which embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, allowing for multiple interpretations and meaning over fixed readings.