Tilleul 1978

Joan Mitchell made "Tilleul," with oils on canvas, and you can see it now at the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Imagine the first gesture, the commitment to the white rectangle, followed by these strokes of blue, black, green and orange! There’s something about the way Mitchell lets the paint drip and pool that feels so intuitive, so free. I bet she was in constant conversation with the canvas, allowing the painting to emerge through layers of trial and error, and pure instinct. I see something both delicate and violent in the brushstrokes. Notice how Mitchell uses thick daubs of paint to create texture, and how the colors bleed into one another, creating a sense of depth and movement. Look at the drips—the way they cascade down the canvas. To me, they communicate a feeling of release, of letting go. It reminds me of de Kooning's wildness or maybe even Twombly's scratchy energy. All painters talking to each other! Painting lets us embrace ambiguity and uncertainty.