Blue White
Ellsworth Kelly
ELLSWORTH KELLY, 1962. OIL ON CANVAS.
“To hell with pictures”, said Ellsworth Kelly, for he does not paint pictures in any traditional sense of the word. Instead, Kelly’s works are imposing studies of tension, geometry and colour, so striking in their scale and vibrancy that the flat plane seems to metamorphosize into three dimensions. Kelly came back to the composition of ‘Blue White’ many times after its creation, the moment of contact between two enormous, abstracted forms became a recurring motif. Yet, on repeated viewing, the planes shift and the blue forms become the background to hard edged white shapes trying to cut their way through. Kelly did not want meaning ascribed to his work, he simply wanted them to be absorbed and, through this absorption, have the viewer question their perception.