Vasari 21, Pic of the Day



Vasari 21


Visitation, 2016, acrylic on wood panel, 12 x 12 in.

Visitation, 2016, acrylic on wood panel, 12 x 12 in.


October 18, 2016: I am regularly astonished at the ways in which artists continue to find something new to say with the grid, a tried-and-true gambit since the days of Mondrian and a formula Agnes Martin coaxed to ethereal levels in her big canvases. But the grid also offers quiet charms on a small scale, as Hester Simpson demonstrates in a couple of series. This recent acrylic painting on a wood panel, “Visitation,” is only a foot square. “The colors — green, brown, purple and yellow — came to me in a dream many years ago,” Simpson writes, “and are distinctly informed by the memory of my grandparents. In the late 1990s and early aughts I made a series using these colors, and they return to me regularly, demanding my attention.” There’s something hypnotic but nonetheless a little unsettling about the way these simple squares interact, never quite coming into clear focus—indeed, a little like a dream overlapping into consciousness.