Prehistoric Figure 1980

Charles Garabedian made this painting with expressive marks of bright blue and fleshy pink, so you know he really wanted to work through something. I can imagine the artwork coming into being bit by bit, shifting and emerging through the joy of trial and error. When I look at this image, I see the artist grappling with the figure, and I can just imagine him, brush in hand, maybe thinking about Picasso, or Guston, or some other rule-breaking figurative painter. The paint itself is neither too thick nor too thin, but juicy, almost like watercolour, and this adds to the sense of a quick, intuitive response to the subject. That confident, almost carefree way the pink brushstrokes define the figure's back - that is what painting is all about for me. Artists are always talking to one another, across time, in an ongoing conversation of mark-making and ideas. This painting is less about a definitive statement, and more about the thrill of possibility, embracing ambiguity and opening up multiple ways of seeing.