Six in Light Orange with Red in Yellow 1970

Here's a print by Patrick Heron, with shapes of red, yellow, and a kind of browny mustard color fighting it out on the surface. I’m thinking about Heron making this, imagining him in his studio—maybe he put down the big red shape first, followed by the yellow, only to realize the red was winning, like it was too aggressive, too loud. And then, he needed to bring in a kind of referee, that more muted brown, to balance things out. He had to work hard to get those colors just right—you know, the right temperature, the right weight. I’m wondering if maybe he wasn’t thinking about Matisse, another painter who played with shape, color and composition. All artists are in dialogue with one another, across time. It's hard to stop the urge to make associations or metaphors when looking at paintings, but ultimately this kind of painting is an invitation into ambiguity, and away from fixed meaning.