Dalet Aleph 1958

Morris Louis made Dalet Aleph with Magna acrylics, staining this rather unnerving image of black funnels directly onto unsized and unprimed canvas. You can really see the mark-making here! I find myself pondering, what's it like to wrestle with this thing, the liquid paint, the way it moves? And what was he thinking, pouring and tilting? Did he start with an idea or did the image appear through the act of staining? I like to imagine Louis in his studio, experimenting with different dilutions of Magna paint to achieve this almost spooky atmospheric effect. Look at how the paint bleeds into the canvas, creating these soft, blurry edges. It reminds me of Helen Frankenthaler's soak-stain paintings, where color becomes an integral part of the fabric itself. Artists are constantly in conversation, aren't they? Taking notes, building on each other’s discoveries. It makes art a never-ending experiment.