The Tempest 1988

Here is a painting by Frank Frazetta, called ‘The Tempest’, made with thin washes of oil, probably over a pencil underdrawing. I can imagine Frazetta wrestling with this painting, trying to get that figure just right, that cloud, that lightning, and all that fire! What I love about a lot of painting is the struggle that’s baked right in. You see that mark over there? It's got a real comic book energy, like a gesture drawing made heroic, and just slightly silly. What was he thinking when he made this? Was he into Milton? Was he just trying to make something cool? The way Frazetta uses paint here is also pretty awesome. It’s loose, it’s fast, but he's got control. It reminds me that all paintings are essentially records of their own making, layers of decisions and revisions. Artists are always riffing on each other, picking up ideas and techniques, and pushing them in new directions. And that’s why it’s so interesting to look closely at how a painting is made because it opens up space for so many different interpretations.