Untitled 1960

This untitled painting was made by Alexandre Istrati, and you can almost feel the artist's breath on the surface. It's like he built this world from the inside out. I imagine Istrati hunched over this canvas, letting those wiry lines dance across the surface, those dark, almost nervous gestures. It reminds me of de Kooning, just letting it all hang out there. The way the blues and browns seep into the ground, it's like he's conjuring some primal soup, a place where forms are still taking shape. There's a freedom in that kind of mark-making, a willingness to embrace the mess. It's like he's saying, "Here it is, folks, the world as I feel it, all tangled and unresolved." And that's the thing about painting, isn't it? It's not about answers, but about the questions we ask along the way, the conversations we have with ourselves and with the ghosts of painters past.