Untitled 1994

This "Untitled" painting was made by Tiberiy Szilvashi with oil on canvas. This feels like looking at a Rothko but maybe underwater. A deep, cerulean blue dominates the canvas, like the sea on a cloudy day. The paint looks like it has been applied in layers, thin veils of colour built up to create depth. A vertical line travels down the painting’s centre – did it come from a brushstroke, or a cloth used to wipe away paint? In the upper reaches of the canvas sits an ovoid, hovering like a dark cloud or some kind of strange sea creature. I feel the artist’s concentration here. I imagine Szilvashi standing in front of the canvas, adding a little here, subtracting a little there, searching for a balance, or a feeling. Those flashes of red down the right and left edges add a zing, a punch, like a Barnett Newman zip. A painting like this reminds us that artists don’t exist in a vacuum. We are always in conversation with each other, riffing on old ideas and discovering new ones.