Tales of Genji IV 1998

Helen Frankenthaler made Tales of Genji IV with a kind of effortless grace, or at least that's how it feels. Her soak-stain technique involves pouring diluted paint onto unprimed canvas, letting the material and gravity do their thing. Look at the upper part of the canvas, where the pinks and greys bleed and blend. The canvas isn’t just a surface; it’s part of the process, like a dance between control and surrender. This work has an incredible sense of fluidity, the colors merging and separating like thoughts in a dream. Then there’s that band of ochre and brown at the bottom, providing a grounding contrast. I see a kind of dialogue between the ethereal and the earthly, the abstract and the grounded. Frankenthaler's work reminds me of Joan Mitchell, in the sense that both artists knew how to harness accident and intuition. You can almost see them thinking through paint, leaving space for multiple readings.