Untitled 1995

This painting by Manoucher Yektai, features these gorgeous, assertive strokes. Just look at the confidence of the strokes building up on the canvas! I can imagine him, brush loaded, attacking the canvas with a flurry of intuitive gestures, probably working in his studio in New York. He was part of the New York School, you know? There's a real sense of process here, with layers of paint building up, creating a thick impasto surface – I love the rawness of that visible texture. Check out the way the figure is constructed from simple shapes and lines, its kinda boneless, and the colours are mostly muted, aside from that bright yellow rectangle in the background, the red opening of the shirt, and those blue jeans. What a juxtaposition of calm coolness and passionate heat! It reminds me a little of de Kooning, but Yektai has his own unique approach. It’s like he’s asking, “How can I capture the essence of this person with just a few, well-placed strokes?” It makes me think about how we all influence each other in this ongoing, beautiful conversation of art.