Ahmet Hello 1967

Edna Andrade made Ahmet Hello with paint, though exactly when is a bit of a mystery. The op-art geometry is so exact and precise, it's hard to believe it's hand-painted. There's something hypnotic in the way the colours vibrate against one another. The composition consists of radiating lines, circles, and stripes, with the flat application of orange, aqua, white, and green creating a dizzying, almost hallucinatory effect. Look at the way the orange stripes bend and curve. I wonder if she used tape to get such sharp lines. The surface looks smooth, and flat, almost like printmaking. It seems like every millimetre has been carefully calibrated. Thinking about someone like Bridget Riley, I find Andrade's hard-edged paintings to be a unique contribution to the history of abstraction, where the goal isn't self-expression but the creation of a visual experience.