The Killing Game 1960

Desmond Morris made "The Killing Game" with a flurry of marks that look like a ritual, an odd kind of ceremony. The yellow and brown palette feels earthy but the whimsical figures are pure imagination. The texture is rough, like the surface of a primordial soup. The paint isn’t trying to be smooth, it’s got this gritty, tactile quality, as if the picture was created through a strange alchemy. Look at the brown figure, pierced by arrows – a bit brutal, but also kind of funny with that tiny bird head. There's also these tall, thin figures with white plumes sprouting from their heads. They look like they’re up to something, maybe casting spells. The overall effect is somewhere between a nightmare and a playground. Morris’s paintings remind me a bit of Miro, in the sense of creating a personal language full of symbols and invented forms. Like any good painting, it's ambiguous; hovering between worlds, it invites you to bring your own interpretation to the game.