Painting #03-06 2003

Rudolf de Crignis made this painting with blue paint, sometime between 1948 and 2006. It's a flat plane, a color field that dares you to look closer, to see past the surface. The color, that blue, it's not just there; it's built, layer upon layer, I can almost feel the texture through my eyes. The paint isn't trying to hide itself. It's thin, but opaque, letting light bounce around in subtle ways. There’s a slight variation in tone if you really look, a gentle move from lighter to darker, it’s like watching the sea on a cloudy day. De Crignis reminds me of Agnes Martin, in that he manages to find the emotional depth of a color, the space between the color and the idea of the color, it's so simple, it’s complex. These types of paintings are less about what you see and more about how you see, and that’s the conversation, isn’t it?