Close considerations

This is a gestural abstraction with a strong structure of expansive electric blue and cool grey central mass that reads like a cloud counterweighted by and pressed against the enveloping warm and fleshy red and ochre. Rather than a designed composition, this painting reads more like a residual field packed with action.

While the bodily red asserts itself as defiant offset to the airy coolness of the blue and grey (half landscape, half figure), generating atmospheric tension; the red patches and surprising hints of green accents punctuate the scene as impurities so it is not too formal, preventing us from getting lost in the dominant zones.

The psychological composition is held together by muscular and rhythmic brushwork that suggests turbulence. The luminous cyan advancing from the left feels heavy but also receding as it matches the register of the white paper underneath, neutralising its own force. While from the oily right, the red advances more consistently adding pressure to the middle stony blue/grey zone. This middle seems to be what truly is in confrontation with the bodily red. And the sedimented ochre ceiling provides a cap containing everything below. And each confronting zone in a way represents a natural element: water, stone, heat and earth.

The activating arc patterns of the strokes model zones similar to how charcoal is used for contouring. This method ensures the abstraction is not purely expressionistic or chaotic even but constructive. The non-mixing of the zones and the confrontation among them guides the eye to the seams, where one becomes curious about the subtly exposed gaps and contaminated “joints” that add a layer of intrigue to the whole thing.