Orange Relief with Green 1991

Ellsworth Kelly’s ‘Orange Relief with Green’ is a great example of the minimalist movement. I like to imagine him thinking about pure form and colour and how the two can create something new. It’s all about shape, colour and placement, right? It’s a half-circle that meets a rectangle. The orange really pops - I see persimmon or clementine - a citrusy glow, while the green feels like fresh grass or a Granny Smith apple. And the way these two colours come together makes the painting vibrate. The painting's surface looks smooth, maybe even machine-made, but I bet Kelly put a lot of thought into how those edges meet. I can imagine him playing with those shapes over and over until it just clicked. It's like he's saying, "Look, isn't this the most interesting thing ever?" Minimalism can be pretty polarising but it continues to influence artists today. It’s about stripping everything down to its bare bones. What do we need? What can we get rid of? It is this that creates something new.