Tightrope walkers 1944

Remedios Varo imagined ‘Tightrope Walkers’ with paint in hand. There’s a curious figure with sharp edges set against an ambiguous space—a forest of brown vertical lines punctuated by what appears to be glowing red slashes. Those lines coming out of the central figure remind me of when I’m painting and I extend a line, then another, and the lines start to take me somewhere I hadn’t planned. What’s so exciting about painting is the not knowing, that space of inquiry, trial and error. I wonder if Varo felt that too, the risk of extending a line into the unknown. The figure seems precariously balanced. Those triangular faces looking out at the viewer suggest a certain awareness. The composition is tight and unsettling. I feel the same way when I make a painting and it’s not quite working, as if the whole thing might fall apart at any moment. Artists, you know, we’re all tightrope walkers in a way, balancing on a line between intention and accident, control and letting go.