Untitled 1964

Derek Boshier made this untitled artwork in London, and boy, does it pop! I can just imagine him there, thinking through the relationships between color, form, and pattern, and figuring out how to create a dynamic and stimulating visual experience. The bright, saturated colors, from the pinks and purples to the blues and greens, evoke a sense of vibrancy, like something from a comic book or a psychedelic poster. I like how the geometric forms – those stacked doughnut shapes and zig-zag patterns – interact with each other to create a playful kind of balance, like the push and pull of figure and ground. This piece feels like a dialogue with other artists from the Pop Art movement and beyond. It’s as though Boshier is taking elements from here and there, reframing them with his own visual vocabulary. These kinds of conversations between artists across time, inspiring each other’s creativity, are what make painting so exciting, embracing ambiguity and uncertainty, and allowing for multiple interpretations.