Composition 1967

Hryhorii Havrylenko made this abstract watercolor, Composition, and you can see how the process of artmaking is front and center. It’s all about how the colours interact, not necessarily what they depict. The paper has a lovely, soft texture, perfect for letting the watercolour pool and settle, creating these slightly blurry edges. Look how the rectangular blocks of colour shift in tone from the bottom to the top of the picture plane, with an overall palette of red, blue and mauve. There is a solid red circle at the top and a series of thin, cyan diagonal lines throughout. Notice how the rectangles at the bottom sit comfortably next to each other, whereas the rectangles higher up are more dispersed and separate. This shift creates a feeling of movement and depth. Havrylenko, like Paul Klee, has a knack for turning simple shapes into complex visual experiences. And, just like with Klee, there’s a sense that the painting is always in motion, always becoming.