Color Blocks 2

This canvas is built like a small painted grid. Deep navy and bright cyan blocks sit on the left, a mustard yellow panel occupies the upper right, and a wide ridged white field fills the right side, dotted with small flecks of warm orange that bleed in from underneath.

Visual cues include forms, shapes, and texture. The palette is anchored by black, blue, and orange. The composition is vertical.

Color Blocks 2 sits well in a game room or a hallway. Boutique hotel and café settings are also a strong fit.

It pairs with abstract expressionism interiors more naturally than ornate ones. A vertical hang reads well above a sideboard or a narrow console.

The dominant register is black, blue, orange, white, and yellow. The cool register keeps the work quiet; nothing pushes forward more than the rest.

Oil on stretched canvas, brought up by a single painter in continuous sittings. Layers of oil build up over the underpainting, so the surface carries visible weight and the brushwork stays legible.

The abstract expressionism character runs through the underpainting, while the forms feel emerges in the surface passes. Color Blocks 2 is finished with the traditional drying and varnishing cycle; the stretcher is keyed evenly to keep the canvas flat in shipping. The vertical stretch keys the canvas tighter at the long edges, which is what holds a tall format true on the wall.

A tall canvas anchors a narrow stretch of wall — beside a stairwell, above an entry table, or alongside a slim cabinet. Centre the canvas at standing eye level (around 150 cm above the floor); a vertical wants air on both sides.

The abstract expressionism character of Color Blocks 2 prefers a wall that has a single focal piece rather than a grid. View Color Blocks 2 from about twice the canvas height back; that is the distance at which the surface settles.