Portuguese Bowline [Knots] 2009

Sarah Morris made this “Portuguese Bowline [Knots]” and though I’m not sure of the exact date, it looks like it was crafted with enamel on household gloss paint, as if she was decorating her apartment, or a boat. There’s this crazy mix of sharp geometric shapes with some fluid, loopy lines that kind of dance across the surface. The colors are so bold and confident: hot pink, electric blue, and a dash of orange that just pops. You can almost feel the smoothness of the enamel, right? In the top left, there's a triangle of black, somehow contained by a thin white frame; it’s so stark that it draws your eye, but then it makes you want to find all of the other shapes. It reminds me of Frank Stella’s early hard-edge paintings, yet, it's like she's taken his seriousness and given it a playful twist. Art isn’t about answers, right? It’s more about the questions we ask, and how we keep the conversation going.