Life and Love 2010

John Hoyland made this painting, *Life and Love*, with acrylic on canvas and it feels like he embraced the glorious mess of painting. Look at that vibrant blue! It’s the kind of blue that hums with energy, underpinned by splashes of white, like a memory of looking up at the sky. The surface is alive with drips and splatters, each mark carrying the energy of its making. There’s a kind of controlled chaos here. Check out the way the paint cascades down, creating these vertical streaks that both unify and disrupt the composition. It’s like watching a storm unfold, or maybe the feeling of paint running down the canvas in the studio, time and time again. Hoyland reminds me a bit of Helen Frankenthaler, who was also interested in the physical properties of paint. For both of them, the canvas becomes a place of experimentation and endless possibility. It feels like the conversation between artists never ends.