Squares, Pink

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better…

See if you can apply our last discussion (https://artamaze.wordpress.com/2016/08/19/the-drama-of-concave-and-convex/) to this painting.

This painting is different in three important ways: The square format pushes you into thinking abstractly. There’s no hint of a horizon line. The color contrasts are more subtle.

If the pink squares were pink dots, the effect would be frivolous, even more so than the idea of red dots  in the last painting. They have to be square!  Btw, the squares were made with linoleum, in a printmaking technique.

Many painters think pink is a problem.  That depends upon how it’s used and next to what.  And in what shape!  Pink squares drifting here across orange and turquoise tickle your retina into bliss.

See an earlier vindication of pink: https://artamaze.wordpress.com/?s=pink

Painting by Jane Donaldson, 2015

Once again, the flip creates a different dynamic. In this case, a sense of balance and stasis.

All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.

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Pink

An abstract painting should knock you out, leave you speechless, with only the compulsion to keep looking at it.
Here’s such a painting. I just want to look at it.
Ok, I’m expected to chat a bit here. Well, it’s pink, to start with. The color pink has endured some bad press, being associated with weakness, daintiness, feebleness, passivity. I remember reading (some years ago) that blue used to be the color for little girls and for boys the recommended color was actually pink because it was considered stronger, being derived from red. I looked it up just now and found this:
“…a 1918 trade catalog for children’s clothing recommended blue for girls. The reasoning at the time was that it’s a “much more delicate and dainty tone.” Pink was recommended for boys “because it’s a stronger and more passionate color, and because it’s actually derived from red.” See
http://www.npr.org/2014/04/01/297159948/girls-are-taught-to-think-pink-but-that-wasnt-always-so
Color suffers all sorts of cultural categorizations, honors and humiliations. We’ve talked about that before on this blog. But pink really gets the treatment in our time. Pink, eeaouh! I, for one, think pink is powerful stuff but I’m always aware that the vernacular consensus is against me.
Then, the black calligraphic lines on top of the pink. Where the pink says “dainty” (at least in the vernacular), the black lines say “assertion.” The black lines are painted with great insouciance and assurance. This “so-what” carelessness is shocking and fitting at the same time.
There’s a tiny speck of yellow on the circles, adding a maddening little focus. Look!

Painting by Cassandra Buccellato, oil on canvas, 36 x 36
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First Try at Painting

I love looking at this painting. It plays with my sense foreground and background. Just when I think it’s the orange shape, the large pink with its engaging texture demands attention. Then there’s the gray and white section, so atmospheric, with just a little black intrusion at the edge to make me wonder what’s going on there. Is the black invading or receding?The green underpainting adds depth of thought and a sense of process.  The division between gray-white-black and pink-orange teases me into reflecting on the history of image making and photography. 
This painting measures 40 x 30 inches. It is the first painting by a person who has never painted before. It was painted in two class periods of three hours each. How is this possible!? Granted, the ambiance in the class is stimulating, the students are bright and motivated, all of them, and I as the instructor enjoy lively conversation. But still, amazing.
All contents copyright (C) 2010 Katherine Hilden. All rights reserved.
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