Site to the man sitting 1974

Jean Dubuffet made this painting with thick black lines and a restricted palette of red, white and blue. I like to imagine him hunched over it, working and reworking the composition through trial, error, and intuition. I really sympathize with Dubuffet, thinking about how hard it must have been for him to construct the site of his paintings. This painting is just one area of inquiry into the world, a world of people sitting, of being. The shapes lock together like puzzle pieces to communicate feeling and meaning. The stripes are particularly successful as they give rhythm to the composition. It reminds me of Léger or Picasso, and their attempts to create a new pictorial language in paint. Artists are in an ongoing conversation, inspiring one another's creativity across time. Painting is a form of embodied expression, embracing ambiguity and allowing multiple interpretations and meanings.