Painting #02-26 2002

Rudolf de Crignis made Painting #02-26 with paint, but the painting itself almost seems to resist that fact! The way the color sits on the canvas is so even and smooth, you can barely see any brushstrokes at all, which makes you wonder about the act of painting itself. Is it one coat or many, and how does this careful process invite us to slow down, to see how much the surface holds within it? Looking at the square block of cornflower blue, I imagine de Crignis thinking about the history of monochrome painting, maybe even feeling the pressure of all those other artists, like Yves Klein, who were obsessed with pure color. But instead of erasing that history, de Crignis somehow manages to open up a new space for seeing, one where color and surface become a kind of invitation for the viewer. It's like he's saying, “Okay, here’s a color, now what?”