Sunbather 1982

Here is Victor Vasarely's 'Sunbather'—we don't have a date for this, but let's imagine Vasarely, like a graphic designer with a wild, hot, and playful heart, experimenting with some kind of screen-printing process. I wonder what it was like making this? The flat planes of color are broken up by the sun, or is it the moon, a face, a hand—and then these mad, red and pink stripes, with silver stripes of light reflecting from the sun, making it feel like the earth, the body, is breathing. Vasarely’s shapes are all about simple forms and the figure is deconstructed into an almost geometric landscape. For me, there is something here about process, and how you can build an image in stages, shifting shapes around, until it feels just right. Like Agnes Martin’s grids or Bridget Riley’s lines, there's a conversation going on between artists about form, and how to make something new out of something old. That’s how artists keep the inspiration flowing!