Jackson Pollock, “Pictures have a life of their own”. You have to have a lot of courage to blow a novel from the perspective of a painting. How do you hear? “Azul noche” is a work largely based on what is described in Jackson Pollock’s “Poles Azules”: The distances between art and the viewer, the creator and the observer, are disappearing. Angela O’Keeffe ensures that thoughts, feelings and mysteries, drawn with poetic lines and wrapped in powerful and delicate brushstrokes, fuse in unbroken harmony in any of its 150 pages. The author of this genius, like an Alice in the reflection of miracles, transcends the mirror of reality and delves into the depths of abstract expressionism represented by a painting open to countless printing methods. We see that he was born in 1952. We see how it grew from New York to Australia when the government bought it. And a dust storm breaks out that transcends the boundaries of art. Poetic and poetic in wild communion.
But “Blue night” is not just a response to this bold approach. It’s also the story of an art student at low hours who connects to Pollock’s work with a violence that has too much shipwreck, perhaps even redemption. Named after Pollock’s world explorer, Alyssa maintains a relationship with the artist’s work that goes beyond the purely academic dimension. There are so many reasons to explore… The causes of destructive desire, with signs of violence such as traces of accumulated anger. A contradictory and challenging bond with his wife, Lee Krasner (an artist like him). And the brutal result of the traffic accident that marked the end.
With these elements, O’Keeffe builds a narrative piece of jewelery where every word is necessary, like paintings where a brushstroke is never missing or superfluous. Art is a source of inspiration not only for the creators, but also for those who observe them. Art that rarely has the ability to change the life of a society. He is basic art, unlimited depth and resonance.
It all starts with someone pouring paint from a tin can onto the floor. Attention: the creative is in motion. He is a guide looking for a horizon, a horizon looking for a guide chasing shared dreams. The novel can be seen as a prose poem in which words evoke feelings (“we are silent”) and gestures become meaningful in his most intimate calligraphy. A plumber called his paintings “crushed road maps.” This author of “maps” was once considered the greatest painter to ever live in the United States. With “Postes Azules” he accomplished more than painting: he filled it with an inner story. Your life. That’s why the work experiences fear, disappointment, sadness, and feels abandoned on its journey from one place to another where there is no “father”. Not just to be admired, but to be looked at. Let them see your soul and read in it.
How does a painting that has become the most expensive in the world in the modern market survive? The novel helps answer a question several people have asked. Maybe none. The weight of uncertainty, the pain of not belonging and the insensitivity to what is represented transform the journeys of the painting into a real adventure where even the captivity in a warehouse is not missing. “Don’t be too sure that the narrator is the narrator,” the book warns. No certainty, no. The mystery strikes every page. In every fold of the inner life of a work that appeals to us, provokes and understands. “A painting begins before it begins”: a book when it is an invitation to understand mysteries like pain, which can also be wonderful.
“History is a moth; his destiny is light.” O’Keeffe walks into the light without deviating from any of Pollock’s shadows, although he admits that “the past can be changed, not motionless.” Especially when you’re a “slave of the future”. The dialogue between the painting and the explorer is fruitful, complicit and irresistible.
When the painting passes the witness of the narrative to Alyssa, the novel becomes more analytical (on art, politics, love, and marriage) and reflective (with life itself and circumstances, vital saves, and warring words). “To live is to know”: After reading this literary gem, we know more about Pollock, his life and art, his immortal painting and Art in capital letters. If “writing is a foretold secret,” what the author does with his novel is to anticipate everything and everyone, to show us what is behind the canvas of existence, and to invite us to accept that “death in art is life.” “And the world is even more full. It’s impossible not to cross the threshold of the last page without a chill (re)information. Believing, creating: our life depends on it.