Abstract (Red and Yellow) 

Curator: This is "Abstract (Red and Yellow)," a painting by Paul Feeley. What are your initial thoughts on it? Editor: It strikes me as surprisingly flat, yet also quite bold in its color choices. There's an almost industrial quality to the application of paint. It’s immediate but… uncomplicated, right? Curator: Feeley's work sits within a fascinating dialogue of modernism. One cannot dismiss the gendered coded narrative embedded in mid-century abstract expressionism where artists sought to transcend social norms yet inevitably fell prey to reproducing the same patriarchal structure of pre and post-war American society. What do you read into this piece with its…simplified geometric forms? Editor: Well, it certainly echoes the mid-century interest in materiality, that's plain enough. Considering he used acrylic paint, a then relatively new medium, we can explore how industrial advancements changed the very language of artmaking. He’s making a physical object using new means of production that also happened to shape art from this period in a more profound and tangible way. Curator: I can't help but think of this through a post-structuralist lens and critique that supposed detachment from context by focusing on these binary-oppositional forces—the flat versus the implied depth, or organic versus geometric—and perhaps exploring a tension regarding authenticity and appropriation of those historical canons within new-age artistic expression. Editor: It feels somewhat impersonal in its production. The smooth surfaces betray any sense of tactile engagement; in effect, Feeley has reduced the hand of the artist—his labor—to a purely executive function. Which certainly had its effect on movements like Pop Art, wouldn’t you say? Curator: Perhaps. From a gender perspective, the simplification and seeming reduction in detail are at the risk of reproducing reductive assumptions—that one could see abstract geometry as an inherently male visual vernacular. A view I find not only problematic but ahistorical and even somewhat naïve when removed from current queer theories that influenced Feeley's time. Editor: Well, looking at its making, one might say it reflects the rapid societal changes, that are almost like the quick-drying properties of acrylic paint; instantaneous. He might be more about the aesthetics but one cannot deny these broader contextual links to its material and societal footprint. Curator: An intriguing viewpoint, a synthesis of making and meaning that illuminates dimensions of this work from distinct perspectives. Thank you. Editor: Thanks to you, too. It has been an enlightening discussion on Feeley's abstract art.