Trellis 1953

Morris Louis made "Trellis" with paint on canvas. The dominant gestures are loose and drippy, kind of like letting paint cascade down and across the surface. I can almost see Louis in his studio, experimenting with gravity and flow. What if he thinned the paint way down, letting it stain the canvas? This isn't about brushstrokes in the traditional sense but more like an embrace of chance. The olive greens and muted yellows create a hazy, atmospheric effect. There's a cool dialogue happening between control and accident. He must have been thinking about Helen Frankenthaler, but pushing it further, maybe a little braver. These marks, drips and pools, they speak to something deep about the nature of painting itself. It's all a big conversation, right? We build on each other's ideas. And that’s the beauty of painting, there is no fixed reading.