Square Motif Green & Lilac 1948

Victor Pasmore built this world of geometric forms with paint and probably a brush at some point in his career. I imagine him, moving things around, one block at a time, the painting slowly shifting and emerging through trial, error, and intuition. The surface is dark but also full of light. The white lines give it this feeling of electricity running through the forms, animating them, almost like an architectural plan come alive. I suppose he must have been thinking about structure but also light, and about how these shapes can play off each other. He was part of this big moment in British art that looked to Europe, to people like Mondrian and the Bauhaus, but he made it his own. It's all part of this ongoing conversation that artists have across time. Each one picking up where the other left off, finding something new in the old, and always, always keeping the dialogue going. It’s open-ended and generous.