BoxCar 11 2011

Charles Gibbons made this painting, BoxCar 11, using bold lines and vibrant colors to create a striking composition. I'm imagining Gibbons in the studio, circling, repeating, almost hypnotically, as these shapes emerge. There's something about the yellow and purple here – they shouldn't work but they really do, don’t they? Look at the texture – the way the paint has been applied in rhythmic patterns, almost like waves. You can almost feel the artist’s hand moving across the surface, pressing and lifting with a controlled energy. It reminds me of the way early 20th Century modernists like Sonia Delaunay used color and pattern to convey movement and dynamism, but with a rawer, more immediate feel. It's like Gibbons is asking us to reconsider how we see and feel color. Painting really is an ongoing conversation.