Triangular Fugue I 1965

John Dowell's 'Triangular Fugue I' sings with the freshness of ink on paper – you can almost smell it! Imagine him in the print studio, pulling color after color, the image emerging in layers, through accidents, maybe some cursing, and definitely a few happy surprises. I'm thinking about how the triangle – that green, looming form – anchors the whole composition, while the red streaks dance around it, like notes in a musical score. The painting’s got this lovely tension between geometry and pure, uninhibited gesture. I bet Dowell was thinking about jazz when he made this – fugue and improvisation meet on the canvas. It reminds me a little of Kandinsky's early abstractions, that same pursuit of rhythm and emotion through color and form. Artists are always in conversation with each other that way, riffing on what came before, finding their own voice. For me, painting is all about that conversation, where uncertainty is not a problem, it's an opportunity.