Rhythm 1970

Victor Vasarely created this grid of rotating rectangles, which he titled 'Rhythm', using screen printing. I can imagine him in his studio, carefully planning out the arrangement of shapes and colours. The dance between warm and cool colours creates a vibrating effect, as if the whole thing is moving. Look at how the colours shift from blues and greens, to reds and purples. Vasarely must have been attuned to the optical effects of colour interaction, like Josef Albers, creating illusions of depth and movement on a flat surface. There’s a systemic logic at play in this work, echoing the repetitive structures found in nature and urban environments. It’s a conversation between order and chaos, control and chance, a formal exercise in pure painting.