Low Water 1969

Joan Mitchell made this painting, "Low Water," with oil on canvas, but really, it’s like she painted feeling itself. The way the colors bleed and blend, it's as if she's showing us not just a landscape, but also a state of mind. Look at the bottom, where the greens and reds meet. You can almost feel the dampness of the earth, the way the paint drips, it’s like water running down a windowpane. The physicality of the paint is so present here – thick in some places, thin in others – that you can practically feel the artist’s hand moving across the canvas. It reminds me of my own work in how it embraces a kind of messy vulnerability. Mitchell always had a knack for making chaos feel deliberate. In her work, and in this painting, I see echoes of de Kooning, that same willingness to let the painting be a record of its own making. It is never really finished, more like a conversation, an ongoing exchange of ideas, questions and feelings.