Saiho 1971

Kazuo Shiraga made this painting, Saiho, sometime in his lifetime, with, well, looks like a whole lotta paint. Shiraga was part of the Gutai group, and they were all about action. You can see it here in the way he applied the paint. The colors bleed and drip into each other, creating a sense of depth and movement. It’s like watching something being born right before your eyes. Check out the way the black paint sort of cascades down, and then little flecks of red come through. It’s almost like a landscape, or maybe even a figure. I love the way the colors aren’t contained, but instead, they run into each other. It feels like the painting is still in process, like it's still growing and changing. I find myself thinking about the work of Helen Frankenthaler, another process-based painter, though with a very different feel. Ultimately, what this painting tells me is that art is all about the exchange of ideas and making something new out of something old.