Untitled (SFP94-33, SFF.1709) 1994

Sam Francis made this untitled painting with what looks like thinned acrylic or ink. The colours are bold and primary, and the way the pigment seems to bloom and bleed into the canvas feels very immediate. You can almost sense Francis’ process here, the way he let the medium do its thing. There’s a beautiful tension between control and surrender. I see a lot of transparency and layering. Look at the bottom right corner, the red seems to sit right on top of a darker patch, maybe black, and you can feel how the painting was built up. Some of the marks have a calligraphic feel, others just look like splatters, like he flicked the brush at the canvas. Francis reminds me a bit of Joan Mitchell, both in their embrace of colour and in their willingness to let the painting guide the way. It's a reminder that art is as much about the journey as it is about the destination.