Untitled 1950s

This untitled work is a drawing by William Baziotes. It's all about line, and the possibility of a line. There’s a meandering quality to the whole thing that feels so human. Like the drawing is thinking out loud. I imagine Baziotes searching for a form or a figure, not quite resolved. We can trace how the artist built the composition through a set of marks, each informed by the last. I bet he put down a line and then paused to ask himself: Now what? The looping gestures become a kind of language; the kind of language you find yourself muttering when you’re alone in the studio, trying to figure things out. It makes me think about other drawings, automatism, and artists who work with chance and intuition to let the unconscious mind take over. This drawing feels like a note to self.