Lac Laronge IV
Frank Stella
FRANK STELLA, 1969. ACRYLIC POLYMER ON CANVAS.
Restless forms are constrained by their canvas. Arcs and circles push against their geometric home, straining their boundaries and compressing against the confinement of the rectangle. Stella had, in the period before this series of works was executed, been using canvases of irregular shapes, defined by the forms of the painting themselves. The same ideas are at play here, namely those of the relationship between the surface and the image upon it, but the surface now takes precedence. Stella’s forms, made by a protractor and paint, seem to fight against each other for prominence; as you stare into the flat expanse of the image the colors dance between the foreground and background. Despite it’s pleasing, almost gentle appearance, there is a fight happening in every aspect of the painting, a battle for visual priority between forms and right of space between surface and image. The painting, in this way, transcends its abstract forms to become something tangibly real - Stella imbues visual forms with a life-force quite unlike any other.