Electric Prisms 1914

Sonia Delaunay’s ‘Electric Prisms’ at the Pompidou Center is a pastel dream. The artwork feels like it came into being through intuition, like a kaleidoscopic vision. I imagine Delaunay, brush in hand, stepping into a conversation with color itself. What's so beautiful is the semi-opaque pastel allowing the eye to wander through a prism of color. It's like she's not just applying color but also layering feelings, like memories fading into one another. There’s a rhythm, a pulse almost, in the way the colors and shapes echo and respond to one another. You can imagine that she has had the feeling of being at a dance, and is trying to record the movement. Delaunay and other painters are forever sparking new directions, reminding us that painting is an embodied expression, a place to feel, to question, and to remain open to possibility.