A Secret Left Alone 2015

Erik Sigerud made this artwork, A Secret Left Alone, probably in a studio, with paint. There’s something wonderfully raw about the surface. You can see how Sigerud let the paint drip and splatter, especially in that explosion of marks in the center, like a dandelion clock someone's just blown. The color palette is muted, almost ghostly, with that strong yellow ochre and those greys. What gets me going about this piece is the way it's not trying to hide anything. The drips, the splatters, the way the paint thins out in places – it’s all part of the story. I’m drawn to the top-left corner. It's like a shadow or a dark room, and then those energetic marks are bursting out into this weirdly lit space. Are they contained by the room or breaking free from it? It reminds me of work by Anselm Kiefer, in the way that he embraces texture, letting the materiality of the paint speak for itself. Ultimately, this piece is a reminder that art isn’t about perfection, it’s about exploration and embracing happy accidents.