Garden 1958

Tihamer Gyarmathy gave us this painting, Garden, made with layers and layers of colored marks. I can really sense the process here. There’s something exciting about the material quality of this piece. The paint looks thick, almost like it’s been built up in layers, giving the surface a real texture, a kind of topographical map of the artist's movements, like he or she was physically wrestling with the canvas. The marks themselves are really varied, there are tiny strokes, broad swipes, and even some areas where the paint seems to have been almost scrubbed onto the surface. The blues and yellows really pop against the background, creating a sense of depth and movement. Look at the little area in the middle, that dense accumulation of strokes, it's like a little universe of its own. Gyarmathy reminds me of another painter, Forrest Bess, with his own weird, personal vision, making art that feels both deeply personal and somehow universal. Like Bess, Gyarmathy embraces ambiguity, inviting us to bring our own experiences and associations to the work.