Still Life 1970

Carlos Scliar made this 'Still Life' painting, with its blocks of blues, browns, yellows, and reds, and hard-edged forms, probably in the mid-20th Century. I imagine Scliar here, teasing out the geometry inside things. The painting feels like it’s been constructed, one plane at a time. And the tension between flatness and depth is palpable. Look at the way the coffee pot is built from geometric forms, and how the various blocks both sit side-by-side and create a sense of receding space, a kind of shallow box for the pot and plate to exist in. There's a tension in the way the handle of the pot is rendered with a single thin line. You know, artists are always looking at each other, responding, and reinventing the world, one painting at a time. I think Scliar has made a painting about that kind of conversation.