Waves 1982

Rashid Al Khalifa made this painting called ‘Waves’ with what looks like acrylic on multiple panels, and it really speaks to the possibilities of seeing the world in different ways. The creamy yellows at the top transition into these delicious blues. The way the colors blend is so fluid, like memory itself. And then those vertical black lines creating a kind of a visual rhythm, chopping up the image into fragments. It’s like looking through a fence. Look at the way the paint moves, especially in the way the white is dragged across the blue. It’s not just about depicting a wave, but really about capturing that feeling of movement, of constant change. And it also reminds me of the work of Gerhard Richter, who also explored abstraction through the lens of landscape. But where Richter might use a squeegee to disrupt the image, here Al Khalifa lets the brush do its thing. What does this ongoing conversation mean to you?