Matrix I 1985

Warren Rohrer made this painting, Matrix I, with delicate layers of paint. I can imagine him, starting with a vague idea, adding and subtracting, until this hazy gradient emerged. There's something both calming and unsettling about the shift from a salmon pink at the top to a deep teal at the bottom. It's like a Rothko, but quieter, more tentative. You can see the ghost of earlier marks underneath, moments where Rohrer changed his mind. The texture is so subtle, almost like a memory. Maybe Rohrer was thinking about landscape, about the way light shifts at dawn or dusk. Or maybe it's just about the pleasure of pushing paint around, seeing what happens when colors meet and mingle. Painters are always in conversation with each other, riffing on ideas, trying to push the boundaries of what painting can be. It’s an ongoing back-and-forth across time and space. And so this piece is part of that bigger story, that bigger matrix, if you will.