Ancient One 2017

David Michael Hinnebusch made this painting, Ancient One, with acrylics, and possibly other media too. I love the push and pull here. There's a sense of the artist building up layers of color, scraping back into them and then adding more, like a painterly archaeological dig. See how the red seems to bleed into the cooler grays and greens? There’s a real sense of play, even in the more somber tones. The drips are interesting. They seem like deliberate gestures, almost like the painting is crying or sweating. The painting embraces a certain looseness, maybe even a bit of mess, which reminds me of Twombly, though Hinnebusch brings his own raw sensibility to it. For me, this piece speaks to the ways art can be a conversation across time. It doesn’t offer answers, but lets us feel something real and unresolved.