Hoop-La 1965

Jeremy Moon made this painting, Hoop-La, with flat colour and hard edges. It feels like a mechanical process, almost as if the forms have been printed onto the canvas. The surface has a slightly waxy quality, so you get the impression the paint was applied thinly, maybe with a roller to avoid brush marks. The red-orange colour is warm, while the blue spots are cool and float away from the picture plane. Look at how the top-most dot is closely aligned to the edge of the canvas. It's like Moon is setting up a system or set of rules and following them precisely. The dots aren't arranged randomly, but seem to be placed on an invisible arc, leaving you wondering how he arrived at that particular composition. The painting has a kind of graphic simplicity. It reminds me of some of Ellsworth Kelly’s hard-edge paintings. But in Moon's work there's something unsettling that disrupts its formal perfection. It's a great reminder that painting doesn't need to answer questions, but instead, be a site for continual exploration.