28.5.66 1966

Curator: Just look at the raw energy radiating from this canvas! John Hoyland's '28.5.66' from 1966 just shouts with colour, doesn’t it? It's currently held at Tate Britain. Editor: It certainly is assertive. I'm struck immediately by the red, the ground, the background--whatever we want to call it, dominates the composition, pressing the other elements forward. You really feel the materiality of the acrylic paint here. Curator: Absolutely. There's a deliberate simplicity that gets under my skin, you know? Like a memory struggling to surface. Hoyland, steeped in abstract expressionism and colour field painting, uses these flat planes of colour not as decoration, but as...emotional blocks, I think. Editor: Yes, those stark blocks draw the eye right in. I'm particularly interested in how the hand of the artist reveals itself. Notice the lower edges of the grey and green rectangles – the little dribbles? It hints at the painting’s production: gravity, viscosity, the choices he made while applying the medium to canvas. Curator: Good point! I hadn’t considered that, actually. He isn't trying to hide anything – there’s something rather authentic and almost… defiant about the unblended edges. But do you think these basic shapes represent something deeper than just colour and form, beyond the material process? Editor: For Hoyland, I'm drawn to the 'how' of it, and that, inevitably leads me to questions about the 'why'. What does it mean to highlight the process? Perhaps a statement about the blurring of boundaries, valuing craft and the means of production over a singular "vision". Curator: Hmmm... so maybe this *is* a statement about deconstructing traditional art hierarchies. I can definitely see your point. Editor: Indeed! Ultimately, a piece like this invites us to reconsider where we locate value – not just in the final image, but in the very act of making. Curator: And perhaps in that re-evaluation, we come to appreciate not just *what* we're seeing, but the vibrant process that brought it into being. Editor: A refreshing way to see this vivid statement from Hoyland.