I nstantly recognisable, SunRa is a test.mes nt to the Stanley Whitney’s celebrated colour grid series in which the artist explores the conceptual capabilities of colour. Named after the visionary jazz artist of the same name, SunRa is a dynamic ode to New York's avant-garde jazz movement, with the artist stating: "Painting, for me, is like music" (Stanley Whitney quoted in: Alteronce Gumby, “Oral History Project: Stanley Whitney by Alteronce Gumby,” BOMB, 21 April 2015, online). Deep hues of acute primaries, secondaries and tertiaries imbue the present work with a dynamic rhythmicality that pulses, expanding and contracting before the viewer’s eyes. Painted in 2016 and exhibited at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth in 2017, one year after Whitney’s seminal exhibition at the Studio Museum, Harlem, SunRa is a vivid large-scale work that attests to the artist’s life-long preoccupation with colour. As described by Whitney: “I don’t have any colour theory. The colour is magic, and I want the work to be magic. I lay a colour down and that colour calls another colour, and then it's a balancing act. You don’t want to have something dominate something else, and you want to have good transitions” (Stanley Whitney quoted in: Alteronce Gumby, “Oral History Project: Stanley Whitney by Alteronce Gumby,” BOMB, 21 April 2015, online).

Influenced by ancient architecture, De Stijl, Abstract Expressionism, early minimalism, Colour Field, and New York’s avant-garde jazz movement, Whitney’s celebrated series has become a hallmark of his practise since the 1990s. Simultaneously embracing the freedom of colour and the order of a geometric grid, works within this series appear to have been animated with a life of their own, their own rhythm, which Whitney describes as “Painting, for me, is like music. It really is like call and response. A colour calls another colour” (Stanley Whitney quoted in: Alteronce Gumby, “Oral History Project: Stanley Whitney by Alteronce Gumby,” BOMB, 21 April 2015, online). The chromatic rectangular and square compositions of Whitney’s work recalls Piet Mondrian’s famous abstract works, similarly inspired by the rhythm of New York City’s Jazz scene in the 1940s. Composed of planes and bands of vibrant colour, SunRa demonstrates a masterly pictorial balance between hues and expression, with Whitney’s freehand brushwork fluctuating between freedom and restraint. Defining space on their own terms, Whitney’s colour blocks bleed into and out of one another, producing a dazzling optical effect.

As seen in the present work, despite the apparent density of the colour blocks, highly saturated with intense pigments, the overall effect of the work is that of a distinct weightlessness, a snapshot of colours and lines that extend beyond the borders of the canvas. Whitney’s distinctive painterly practise was featured in a solo exhibition at the 59th Venice Biennale, showcasing the artist’s evolution of form and colour.

本 作風格鮮明獨特，一眼就能看出是出自史丹利・惠特尼之手。惠特尼以著名的彩色方格系列探索以色彩表達概念的可能，本作《桑·拉》正是其中一幅出色的代表作。桑·拉（Sun Ra）是一位知名爵士樂手的名字，惠特尼用他的名字為作品標題，可見他有意藉此向紐約前衛爵士樂致敬。他曾經說：「對我來說，繪畫就跟音樂一樣」（引述史丹利．惠特尼，載於艾爾泰隆斯．甘比撰，〈艾爾泰隆斯．甘比的口述歷史計劃：史丹利．惠特尼〉，《BOMB》，2015 年 4 月 21 日，網上資源）。三原色、二次色和三次色的深沉色調充滿力量，為作品注入一種躍然跳動的節奏感；它們同時浮現、消失，擴張、收縮，吸引著觀者的目光。2016 年，哈林工作室博物館為惠特尼舉辦了一場重要的個展；同年他創作了這幅生機洋溢的大型作品《桑・拉》； 一年後，此作在沃斯堡現代藝術博物館展出。本作體現了惠特尼一生對色彩的著迷和專注，正如他本人所言：「我沒有任何色彩理論，色彩很神奇，而我希望作品同樣充滿神奇力量。我塗上一種顏色時，那種顏色就會呼喚另一種顏色，達致相互平衡。你不會想任何一方尤其突出顯眼，而是希望當中有良好的過渡」（同上）。

惠特尼的彩色方格系列受古代建築、荷蘭風格派運動、抽象表現主義、早期極簡主義、色域繪畫和紐約前衛爵士樂運動影響，自 1990 年代起成為惠特尼的創作標誌。這些作品既擁抱自由奔放的色彩，又包羅了井然有序的幾何網格，它們彷彿鮮活過來，擁有自己的生命和節奏。惠特尼說：「對我來說，繪畫就像音樂，就像一呼一應，一種色彩呼喚另一種」（同上）。作品的彩色方形構圖亦讓人想起皮耶．蒙德里安（Piet Mondrian）聞名遐邇的抽象作品。與惠特尼一樣，蒙德里安同樣受到 1940 年代紐約爵士樂啟發。《桑·拉》以色彩鮮豔的平面和條帶組成，營造出色調和表現力之間的絕妙平衡；而惠特尼徒手繪畫的筆觸克制卻又寫意，可見其畫功收放自如。他繪出來的色塊彷彿各以自己的方式定義空間，相互滲入滲出，色彩斑斕，帶來令人眼花繚亂的視覺效果。

這些色塊雖然看似濃烈飽和，但整體的畫面卻予人輕盈無重的感覺，而且更將延伸至畫布外的色彩和線條一一呈現。第 59 屆威尼斯雙年展上有一場惠特尼的個展，展覽的作品精彩地呈現惠特尼別樹一幟的藝術風格，以及他在形式和色彩上的演變。