Curly Star and Moon 1974

Alexander Calder made this painting, Curly Star and Moon, with gouache and ink on paper. I imagine him working fast and loose here. It’s all playful shapes and lines, like a kid’s drawing but with a sophisticated twist. The red and black kind of pop against the creamy background, right? It's like he's making friends with these cosmic characters, giving them silly faces and expressions. The curly star with those cute lil’ leaves! And that moon, so dark and mysterious. Calder often went back and forth between two and three dimensions, which is really interesting to me as a painter. He’s such an important precursor to the kind of playful, sculptural painting I'm interested in. I think artists are always looking at each other’s work across time, even if they don’t know it consciously. They absorb each other's energies and invent new ways of seeing.