Running Colour

The face is broken into flat patches with no attempt at skin anywhere — pink against yellow against blue, each one stopping at a hard edge. What holds it together is the black line, which runs round the eyes, the mouth, the ear and the jaw and does the drawing that the colour refuses to do. The background is the opposite. There the paint was let loose to run straight down the canvas, wet, with the drips left where they landed.

Everything here is moving except the face. The colour behind it runs, the colour inside it fights, and the eyes stay closed.