Black and Blue Stripes 1958

Patrick Heron made this work, Black and Blue Stripes, with some kind of printmaking process using black and blue ink. I can imagine Heron in his studio, maybe pushing the ink around with a squeegee, seeing what would happen. There's something almost architectural in these horizontal bands. It’s like he's building a structure, layer by layer, idea by idea. It feels really intuitive. Look at the different textures and the density of each stripe—how the eye travels across the surface, catching on those little imperfections. It's not perfect, it's not trying to be, and it’s more interesting because of it. I like how he’s not afraid to let the process show, to let the material speak. Heron’s definitely in conversation with other painters, figuring out what abstraction can do, how it can express feeling and thought without representing anything directly. He leaves space for us to bring our own experiences, our own interpretations. It's a generous act, really.