Albatross 1973

This is ‘Albatross’ by Gene Davis, where pastel-hued stripes parade vertically across the canvas. I’m imagining Davis standing before this canvas, a maestro of color, orchestrating these lines with a steady hand, almost like a minimalist Sol LeWitt perhaps. There’s something meditative about the repetition, yet each stripe has its own character, its own subtle variation in tone and width. I get the feeling Davis was really thinking about the dialogue between color and rhythm. It is a subtle piece, as though it is exhaling gently. These vertical lines are not just marks on a surface, but rather pathways for our eyes to wander, to discover new relationships between colors, to find moments of harmony and dissonance. And it makes me think about the way that artists are always building upon one another's work. Each painting adds its own voice to this ongoing conversation.