One of my favorite artists is Barnett Newman. His abstract expressionism and simplicity are things I always keep in mind when I paint. One of his most well known series of paintings is the Stations of the Cross. It’s incredibly moving, seeing these paintings in a round room, displayed so that if you spun in a circle, you would feel as if you were able to take in the series at once. What is even more insipring from his work is that as a Jewish artist, he was depicting what is considered a Christian tradition. But it wasn’t about us vs. them. The series is about a man’s struggle and sacrifice. I believe the paintings are still at the National Art Gallery in D.C., please see them if you have a chance.
Twelfth Station
One part of Newman’s work is about his use of zips. These zips are breaks in the color field, either with negative space (covering up the canvas and painting over it) or with positive (painting around the zip with different colors).
Vir heroie subl.
Here are a couple of my own zips:
