Central Park 2 2016

Albrecht Behmel made this painting, Central Park 2, on a canvas 100 by 150 cm, and it's like a party of colors all jammed together. Look at how Behmel builds up the image with all these little dabs and strokes – it's a real hands-on, physical thing. The paint isn't trying to hide; it's right there on the surface, thick and juicy. And that color, how he lets the greens, reds, yellows, and blues bump up against each other! It gives the whole thing a vibrating energy. Check out the way the park’s ‘nature’ butts right up against the regimented grid of the city. It’s not perfect perspective but more like a feeling of space, a sensory overload. Behmel is doing his own thing, bending the rules and trusting his gut. You could almost see a bit of Milton Avery here, with that same willingness to simplify and let color do the talking. It’s the kind of painting that reminds us art is always a conversation, a way of seeing and riffing off what's come before.