Hard Edge Painting

Assignment 4 – Abstraction

Hard-edge and abstract Expressionism

I enjoyed doing this exercise but had difficulty removing the masking tape without pulling up the acrylic paper.  I can see that it would work a lot better on board and will certainly bear this technique in mind when considering abstract motifs that require clear cut lines with no brush mark painting.

In this painting I decided to use red and black as my theme colours much as Malevich did.  It echoes the Stendhalian La rouge et le Noir involving themes of death and passion.  The sharp corners signifying weapons.  The stabilizing influence of the triangle or pyramid helps the painting to be grounded.

This was supposed to have been used as the basis of hard-edge abstract expressionism with the use of oil pastels and graphite, but I felt it worked best as it is.  The work has the influence of Franz Kline and Clifford Still.  I did not therefore want to introduce other marks as I felt the composition worked as it is.

I used cut out triangles and rectangles and set them randomly on the paper which had been washed fairly crudely with yellow paint.  I then painted black in the negative shapes left between the cut-outs and masking tape.  I felt the slightly lose edge worked best.