I am on a color kick and this is the coolest. Gene Davis was part of the Washington Color School, a group of mid-century color field painters. He is best known for his colorful stripe paintings which he began making in 1958. He aim was to create a sense of musical rhythm through the repetition of colors. He made the world's largest painting in a Lewiston, NY parking lot in 1972. The stripes really work for him. Before 1958 his work was typically abstract expressionist, with thick and dripping paint in full color. The stripes seem to hit on something more for Davis. I really like his titles too--Nighhawk, Solar Diary, Mark Twain, Bartleby, Black Panther...The large scale paintings move effortlessly to installations in a Sol Lewittian way.
He also created the world's largest painting, Niagara (43,680 square feet), in a parking lot in Lewiston, NY. His "micro-paintings", at the other extreme, were as small as 3/8 of an inch square.
talk about a 'color field'!
magic circle, 1975
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