Otage n°3 1945

Jean Fautrier made this painting, "Otage n°3," with thick, crusty paint and a palette of earth tones and fleshy pinks. I can imagine Fautrier building up the surface, layer upon layer, almost sculpting with the paint. You know, pushing it around, scraping it back, letting it dry, and then attacking it again. It's this kind of working and reworking that gives the painting its power. Look at how the central form seems to emerge from the dark ground, struggling to define itself. You can almost feel the artist's frustration, his determination to wrestle something meaningful from the muck. I see echoes of other painters who embraced the messy, the unresolved, like Guston or even Soutine. Ultimately, it's the artist's willingness to embrace ambiguity, to leave the painting open to interpretation, that makes it so compelling. There is an ongoing conversation across time between paintings, and it's up to us to decide what it's all about.