Bird Cage Variation II 1958

Hans Hofmann made Bird Cage Variation II with oil paint, and the result is this beautiful patchwork of feelings. I can almost see him standing in front of the canvas, brush in hand, thick paint loaded up and ready to go. A big, bright red rectangle sits smack-dab in the middle, like a burst of energy, and then all around it, these choppy strokes of blues, blacks, greens and whites, kind of wrestling with that red. It's like he’s pushing and pulling the space apart, trying to make it breathe. You know, painting is so much about touch and texture. The way Hofmann layers that paint, you can almost feel the weight of it, the physicality. And those gestural marks? Each one is like a little map of his thinking, his feeling, his struggle to get something down, and he’s in conversation with artists like Arshile Gorky, and many others who paved the way. It's a wild conversation, but so inspiring!