Amenite 1959

Jean Dubuffet made this print, Amenite, sometime in the mid-20th century, conjuring a world from a limited palette. Imagine him, splattering and spotting, building up the surface like a cosmic dust cloud. I sympathize with Dubuffet’s mark-making—the instinct to cover the ground, to fill the space with tiny gestures, kind of like when I fill a canvas with colour and shapes, letting it all accumulate into something new. I wonder, was he thinking about the earth, or maybe the night sky? The off-whites and earth tones remind me of the raw materials of painting, like he’s showing us the bare bones of his art. It’s funny how a simple gesture, like a splat, can carry so much feeling. This piece feels like Dubuffet is in conversation with all the painters who came before him, riffing on their ideas, pushing the boundaries. Painting is just that, an exchange across time, each artist inspiring the next. It embraces ambiguity and uncertainty, which is where the magic happens.