Untitled 1964

Eva Hesse made this untitled painting with gouache and ink on paper, and what grabs me first is how she's juggling the geometric with the sort of drippy, chaotic lines. The colours are like a playful tug-of-war, and you can almost feel her hand moving across the page. There's a big black stripe that sort of slices through the middle. Above, shapes and scribbles seem to float, almost like memories or daydreams bubbling up. Then, below the line, a pink square and a green triangle anchor everything. That pink is so great! Look closely, and you'll see these little figures, like doodles in a notebook, all connected by these stringy lines, which feels very like the sculptures she became known for later. It's almost as if Hesse is mapping out a whole world, one where things don't quite fit together perfectly, and everything’s a little bit off-kilter. Maybe she was looking at Gorky or de Kooning? For me, it's this openness to possibility that makes her work so fascinating.