Ynotartblog's Blog

As the work on my untitled artist book continues to evolve, so have the iterations. Recently, I rounded up 5-9″x12″ linen stretched canvases I had acquired months ago and decided to make a polyptych using the 5 colors (C.P. cadmium yellow light, teal, C.P. cadmium orange, light magenta, light green/blue shade) from the beginning chapters of my artist book, with the addition of the underpainting color, titan buff. This post will focus on the polyptych, although a comparison of vertical and horizontal reads of the same 5 colors in each work might spur on a future post.

I began the polyptych with the idea to assign light magenta as the agent of what I imagined to be a soft, a velvet if you will, takeover of the other colors. Moving the eye from left to right, the first panel begins where all 5 plus titan buff are on equal footing. That introduction shifts in the second panel where the command of space begins to change, and light magenta gently defines a greater area than each of the other colors. But what happened to light green/blue shade? The eye will carry that question onto the next panels. Meanwhile, C.P. cadmium yellow light, teal, and C.P. Cadmium orange seem to have banded together,,,strength in numbers?

The middle panel is the clincher. Color bands are disappearing. No doubt about it. And it looks like titan buff is holding on by a very thin margin as light magenta slowly expands its territory.

C.P. cadmium yellow has powered up and makes its strongest stance yet to confront the ever-enlarging movement of light magenta westward with a much weakened titan buff.

Light magenta meets light magenta in the last panel. Soft takeover complete. But wait! Light green/blue shade enters stage right. Making a decidedly brighter and stronger appearance, light green/blue shade throws a boomerang and demands a recounting! as the eye moves backward panel by panel to the beginning.

That’s one reading.

I find the movement in this work to be more than I expected. The reappearance of light green/blue shade (a late in the game decision) refreshes the action back upon itself to be repeated. And then the stopping points! The receding teal bands draw my eye into and beyond. Certain panels establish strong connections to their neighbors thereby asserting a separate story, yet still part of the whole.

I hope to hear the stories other see…