Purple King 1996

Kazuo Shiraga made "Purple King" with paint, but how? He's known for using his feet! I imagine Shiraga on the floor, wrestling with this canvas, pushing and pulling that gorgeous purple paint. Look at the sheer physicality of those strokes, they almost feel sculptural, like ribbons frozen in time. You can see how the paint bunches up in some areas, thin and transparent in others, giving the whole thing a real sense of depth and movement. That emphatic gesture is so loaded. Is it aggressive, or playful? Is it a dance? It reminds me of Franz Kline's black and white abstractions. All these painters, they're in conversation, even across time and continents, pushing each other to see what paint can do, how it can express something beyond words, something primal and raw. What does it mean to be a king? Shiraga isn't telling us, he is showing us. That's the power of painting, isn't it?