Free Flight 1964

Jeremy Moon made this triangle of stripes sometime before he died in 1973. Just look at the colors in this painting—bold yellows, blues, greens, reds, oranges, and purples—lined up as if marching towards an unknown destination. I imagine Moon, brush in hand, carefully applying each stripe, thinking about how one color sings next to another. It’s so evenly applied; it must have taken days of applying tape, and re-applying it. See how the colors push and pull against each other? It’s like a conversation happening right before your eyes. It's so optical it makes your eyes vibrate! The triangle is such a simple form, but here, it becomes a vessel for pure color energy. It reminds me a little of Kenneth Noland or even Barnett Newman, but Moon brings his own particular sensibility to it. What is special here is the diagonal rhythm of how the eye is pushed across the surface in a very calm, but decisive manner. This piece, "Free Flight," is so much about finding your own path. Moon isn't afraid to let his colors do their thing, and maybe that's the ultimate free flight.