Untitled 1953

Cy Twombly made this untitled black and white work with fluid, expressive marks that convey the emotional energy that went into it. I can imagine him, totally absorbed, layering the dark ground and then scratching lines into it, almost like he’s drawing with light. The white feels raw, immediate. Is it paint or ink? You can see the texture, the way the material responds to his touch. It kind of reminds me of my own process, actually. Like, there’s this push and pull between intention and chance. That horizontal stroke could be a landscape, or maybe just a feeling, something that can't be put into words. Looking at this piece, I’m reminded of other painters who embraced this kind of gestural abstraction. Twombly was, after all, in dialogue with the Abstract Expressionists, and it’s wild how they all built on each other's experiments. This is how artists work, inspiring each other across time. The act of painting is a conversation, a way of thinking through doing, always open to new possibilities.