Gronk! 1964

Norman Bluhm made 'Gronk!' with paint, and likely a brush or two, and maybe even his hands; it's a wild one. Can't you just see him, wrestling with this canvas, throwing down those heavy black lines like he's framing some kind of primal scream? There's a ferocity here, but also a playfulness, like he's daring the painting to come alive. The surface is scumbled, speckled, layered, it's a record of his process. The colors are like echoes, orange, green, hints of red, ghosts in the wake of that black. Bluhm was part of that Abstract Expressionist wave, always riffing on what came before, trying to push painting somewhere new. They're all in conversation with each other, those painters, even now. Each one is trying to find their own voice in the chaos. And that's what painting is, right? A conversation, a struggle, a beautiful, messy way of figuring things out.