Untitled 1938

Grace Pailthorpe made this painting, out of oil, and with a lot of imagination. Looking at it now, I imagine her starting with a green background. Then she puts down that big blue shape, and a sort of world begins to emerge. The more I look, the more I think of all the painters, across time, who have tried to capture what it feels like to be human: the surrealists especially! I imagine Pailthorpe asking herself, "What am I feeling now? What does it look like?" Then she would've gone ahead and expressed these feelings on canvas. There's this sweeping yellow shape on the left with a brown form snuggling into it. You can almost feel the energy of the artist trying to work through and give form to some very big feelings. Pailthorpe's painting is one moment in a long, ongoing conversation between artists, where they challenge each other to see the world anew. It's kind of like a game of visual tag, where each artist leaves their mark and inspires someone else to jump in and play.