Cosmic Star Twins #1 2009

Jack Armstrong made "Cosmic Star Twins #1", in acrylic on canvas, and it’s now in a private collection. It's a wild, all-over composition, like a Jackson Pollock but turned up to eleven. The bright colours just explode off the canvas, don't they? Looking at the surface, you can almost feel the physicality of the paint. It's thick, almost gloppy in places, and you can see the trails of the brush or whatever tool Armstrong used to fling it across the surface. Check out that big red splodge in the middle! It’s like a volcanic eruption frozen in time. It’s so visceral, you can almost feel the energy of the artist's hand. I like to think of it as a record of his movements, his gestures, his very being. You might see something similar in the work of Yayoi Kusama, particularly her infinity net paintings. But where Kusama is obsessive and repetitive, Armstrong is more chaotic, more impulsive. Ultimately, art is an ongoing conversation, a dialogue between artists across time and space. It’s not about finding the "right" answer, but about embracing the ambiguity, the multiple possibilities.