Saint Helices 2, 5" x 5", acrylic on paper, 1989. Artist's collection.

The square format was an effort to eliminate the predominance of a vertical, or horizontal plan that would pictorially suggest spatial orientation--up, down, portrait, landscape, etc.. I tilted the white ellipse which suggested the halo forms I was familiar with from early Renaissance paintings of saints. I also aligned the black ellipses with the centers of the edge forms.