Untitled, No. 137 1965

Olga Albizu created this untitled, no. 137, with paint, sometime in the twentieth century. The shapes are built up from small marks, like tiles, each one a decision. For Albizu, like a lot of us painters, the process is everything. The palette is mostly cool blues and violets and the paint is applied pretty thick. You can see how Albizu loaded her brush and pressed it to the canvas, leaving a record of her gesture. See how some of the tile shapes are translucent and others are more opaque? And these two big amorphous blobs that might be people? It’s like they're moving through a cloud. The overall effect is a bit like Bonnard’s interiors, how he used color to evoke mood and atmosphere. Except here, Albizu isn’t interested in depicting domestic life, or a still life, it’s all about pure abstraction. And that's what makes it so interesting, this exploration of how color and form can create a world of their own.