April 7, 2011

A New Painting: "Red Disks", a Diptych


Red Disks, egg tempera on parchment; 2 panels each 3 3/8 x 6 1/2 inches.


We are used to thinking of a diptych as a side by side arrangement of two panels, and I have generally followed that formula, for instance with Red Construction, and Blue/Green, but here I decided to place one panel atop the other. The long narrow shape of each panel makes this placement seem inevitable, but it was the movement and placement of shapes that especially encouraged it. I like the way the thick curving line moves from top to bottom panel; I see this element as the primary connection between the two parts. There is also the repetition, to the left and right, of the platforms holding the disks, and the intruding rectangles of red. The jagged rhythms from the diagonals play against the long horizontals and there is movement in and out of space. I think this painting (and I consider it one painting) balances the spacial complexities and doesn't fly apart into competing details; am I correct?


9 comments:

  1. very nice, and I really like that spot of red against the beautiful greens!

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  2. Thanks, Mona. I enjoyed putting in that red, though it was a little difficult to get the right hue and value so it wouldn't pop too much.

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  3. When I saw this as a very tiny FB image, I thought it was a landscape — perhaps an aerial view!

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  4. Ms. Wis., now that you mention it, the painting does look like a landscape view. Thanks for seeing that.

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  5. Everything about this works for me: movement, form, color. The juxtapositions balance as two the two diverse bolts.

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  6. I meant: as DO the two diverse bolts.

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  7. I find my eye scanning the panels from right to left as if reading eastern text, encouraged by the shape of the panels, the dark line transitioning to red, then red to line, and the directional triangular shapes ( to name just 3 elements). It is easy to forget the highly functional machine you have deconstructed and offered back to us as something new. I get a sense of the historical and yet I am not confined to a particular interpretation. It is understandable how Ms Wis could be transported into a landscape with the irony of the "soft" edge of what was once a weld edging a rectangular field, a hexagonal structure on an earthen paddock, and the organic feel of bent rods...very interesting.

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  8. thanks for the close, complex reading of this painting, john. It's wonderful for me to know that it provides such a range of responses.

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