That’s what Ad Reinhardt, painter of deep black canvases, wrote was “the one thing to say about art and life.” Seattle’s best advocate of art for art’s sake is Jeffrey Simmons, a painter whose watercolors slay me.

They just seem physically impossible. I don’t know how he does this with watercolor. The control is superhuman; they’re as precise as if they were made in wet concrete. (It scares me a little.)

At the same time, they’re vulnerable, unlike Simmons’s abstractions in acrylic or coated in resin. The fact that all this fine-toned achievement will fade, however subtly, is unthinkable. Yet the fuzzy planes of color in the watercolors look like they’re disappearing, hovering the way only paint made from water can, and interrupted by subtle light splotches, as if errant fingerprints have stolen away a little color already.

A color theorist might have a field day with these. Not being one, I’m inspired to devotion instead. Art like this doesn’t need life; it’s the other way around.

Below is Sift, made in 2007. It’s well worth seeing in person, along with six other Simmons watercolors, in the group show Unexpected Watercolors at Seattle U’s Lee Center. Closes this Saturday (hours are 1:30 to 6 pm daily until then).

^{Photo courtesy the artist and Greg Kucera Gallery}