Untitled 1969

Ronnie Landfield made this untitled painting, and you can really see how he’s embraced the unpredictable flow of the paint. The colours melt together in this dreamy mix of pinks, purples, and earthy tones, and it’s all about letting the process lead the way. Looking closely, it's like peering into a cosmic soup. The way the paint thins and pools creates these almost ethereal textures. See that dark, vertical shape in the middle? It’s like a spine or a shadow, anchoring the whole composition, yet it also feels like it’s floating, not quite solid. It’s this ambiguity that makes the painting so engaging; it invites you to get lost in the details. This feels very different to some of those hard-edged abstract paintings from the same period. It’s as if Landfield is in conversation with Helen Frankenthaler, pushing the stain painting technique to its limits, proving that abstraction can be both rigorous and totally free.