ART & DESIGN | shading optional: Ellsworth Kelly

Without an education in Art History, I find discovering artists difficult with no starting point to delve into. There are art movements to explore, but within a certain art movement there is a plethora of artists. So many artists, so little time...anyway for my first artist post I'm talking about someone I had discovered just late last year: Ellsworth Kelly

Hailing from New York, Ellsworth Kelly is a painter, sculptor and printmaker. His style is often hard-edge, colour-field, or minimalism painting.

Colors for a large wall, 1951

Nine colors, 1951

Spectrum IV, 1967 

clockwise from top left: White curve VII, 1976; White and black, 1951; Vertical band (from the series Line Form Color), 1951; Black and white ((from the series Line Form Color), 1951; Horizontal band, 1951; Rectangle (from the series Line Form Color), 1951

clockwise from top left: Red (from the series Line Form Color), 1951; Yellow (from the series Line Form Color), 1951; Blue (from the series Line Form Color), 1951; Green, 1951; Black, 1951; White, 1951

White diagonal II, 2008 (Two joined panels)

Mr. Kelly really has a way of working with colour and using it to his advantage in his paintings. The composition and strategic placement of colour especially in paintings like Colors for a large wall certainly are stellar examples. And just when you think you couldn't do anymore with the two most universal "colours", black and white, Ellsworth Kelly places one painted panel on top of the other at a curious angle.

Another notable part of Ellsworth Kelly's work besides his paintings is also his drawings, specifically that of plants.

Briar, 1961

Briar, 1982

Magnolia, 1965-1966

Wild grape leaves II, 2004

The way that he observes plants and translates them into drawings is ingenious as it is amazing; only lines, rendered delicately. It comes as a stark contrast to his paintings, which are solid, bold blocks of colour.

I recently came across a post on Instagram about Ellsworth Kelly and it had a quote, about him talking about his plant drawings:

"This one is a banana leaf. See the way it overlaps? You don't have to put shading in. I don't like shading. Just the line. As I say the line is the excuse." (source)

Reading this quote I was hit with the realisation that I didn't need to feel bad or put myself down just because of shading. I am terrible with shade rendering (I hated it so much during drawing classes) and it made me feel inadequate compared with my other schoolmates who did so much better and were so comfortable with it. A few could even do those realistic/photographic drawings or paintings! But this made me feel better, because shading is not everything. Shading does not determine how good an artist is. The ability of the artist to translate thought into an artwork is.

"The most pleasurable thing in the world, for me, is to see something and then translate how I see it." (source)

 I hope you were inspired as I was!

Till next time,

Yolande