Summon up, #11 1958

Frederick Hammersley made "Summon up, #11" with oil on board and, looking at this piece, I’m struck by its playful geometry and flat colors that make me think about the basic building blocks of seeing. There's this deep reddish-brown semi-circle at the bottom, kinda like a landscape, but then everything else is floating on top, defying any sense of depth. Hammersley applied the paint in thin, even layers and somehow avoids any kind of brushstroke, so the shapes feel super clean and precise. The way he juxtaposes these blocks of color makes my eye bounce around the canvas, trying to make sense of how they all fit together, like a visual puzzle. Think about how this contrasts with the gestural abstraction of someone like Kandinsky. Where Kandinsky is all about feeling and intuition, Hammersley is more cool and controlled. Yet, both invite us to lose ourselves in the pure experience of color and form. It's a reminder that art doesn't always have to be about "something". Sometimes, it can just *be*.