Order Interrupted

Primary colors are pleasing. Look: red, blue and yellow. Plus two secondaries, orange and green. Plus black and white. This is a pleasing painting. The colors are luminous and the composition is stable and orderly. What more could you want!?
Well, you might want some chaos to liven things up a bit, because our experience of life is, dare I say it, a bit chaotic. Our rationality only covers so much territory in our inner lives. If you think chaos belongs to a truthful look at life, painting may be your medium. Paint welcomes chaos. Dip the brush into some paint on your palette and whoosh. Chaos comin’ right up, sir.

This is exiting to look at, way beyond just pleasant. Notice how things overlap and fade. Notice how your eye is constantly moving through this thing.  You cannot rest any where, even though you can see that the underlying structure is rectilinear and stable.

The painting appears to have multiple layers, but actually it only has four. The top layer consists of two rectangles, neatly outlined: one black and one smaller one in yellow. These two rectangles cover very little surface, but isn’t it uncanny how they contribute to the illusion of depth in the painting?
Painting by Bruce Boyer, oil on canvas, 30” x 40”
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
http://facefame.wordpress.com
http://katherinehilden.wordpress.com
http://www.katherinehilden.com
http://www.khilden.com