Variations 1953

Cesar Domela made this artwork, "Variations," using paint, and right away you can see how he's thinking about artmaking as a process with all these lines and shapes interacting. Look at the surface - the paint is applied so smoothly, almost like it's been airbrushed. Yet, within those smooth areas, notice the dynamic lines that swoop and dive across the canvas. There's a kind of controlled chaos in the composition, a balance between the geometric forms and the free-flowing lines, it's pretty rad. There's one particular area where the black and red shapes converge, crossed by a few pale blue lines. It’s as though all the energy of the painting is concentrated there, a focal point that pulls your eye in. Domela reminds me a bit of early Kandinsky, in his use of abstraction to evoke emotional and spiritual states. And like Kandinsky, Domela invites us to let go of fixed meanings and embrace the ambiguities of abstract art.