Ab-Ex With Circles, 18" x 24", acrylic on canvas, 1987. Artist's collection.

The abstract expressionist ground of this composition is more gray in tone as a result of manipulating the thick areas of wet black and white paint directly on the canvas. Just as the cylinder form in Ab-Ex With Cylinder operates as a conceptual/visual foil for the expressionistic brush work, in this composition I have applied a different type of conceptual/visual foil. Conceptualizing the foil aspect of this composition followed the same "contrasting" line of thought which brought the integration of the chiaroscuro element to Ab-Ex With Cylinder. In this composition for contrast I have applied geometric forms (circles) in a minimalist mode of presentation within the disorder of the abstract expressionism. I felt that the introduction of intensely-colored geometric forms could easily undo the dynamism of the black and white abstraction if the application of these contrasting forms was performed injudiciously. My intent was to create a balanced integration of disparate visual forms and ideas. The red circle at upper left, the orange circle at upper right, the blue circle at lower left, and the green circle at lower right are all visually engineered in terms of their scale, mutual orientation, orientation to the "ground" and color issues--value, saturation, and complementary schemes.