#2 Pri-Rain 1964

Sam Francis made this untitled painting in oil on canvas. The dominant gestural marks are like splatters and drips in a bright color palette – yellows, reds, blues. It feels like the painting came into being through a kind of intuitive process, with each mark responding to the last. I sympathize with the artist here, imagining what it might have been like to create. What might Sam Francis have been thinking when he made it? The paint looks pretty thin, which allows it to flow and drip more freely. The physicality of the medium really shapes our experience. That splatter of red paint there feels spontaneous and energetic. It makes me wonder if Francis was influenced by Jackson Pollock, another painter known for his drip paintings. It’s like these artists are in an ongoing conversation, each inspiring the other’s creativity across time. Painting is a form of embodied expression, open to so many interpretations and meanings.