San Bernadino 1997

This is Joe Goode's "San Bernadino," and looking at it, I can't help but think about the idea of a landscape, or a skyscape, made with really fugitive materials – like the paint is almost evaporating off the surface. There's this sense of the colours being applied with a kind of loose, almost accidental touch, like maybe he used a spray gun or flicked the paint, letting it scatter across the surface. I can imagine him, trying to capture something ephemeral, like the light hitting the mountains in California, or maybe just the feeling of being out there, surrounded by all that space and light. The yellows and oranges are so warm, but they are also sort of fleeting, like a memory. You know, like he is really trying to pin down a feeling that is impossible to capture. He’s in conversation with artists like Joan Mitchell, Helen Frankenthaler, and so many others.