Ellsworth Kelly’s Gray Curve Relief from 2010 superbly exemplifies the ceaseless exploration of form, space, and color which has distinguished Kelly’s celebrated oeuvre. Rendered in a serene, muted palette of soft grey and white, the present composition brilliantly disrupts the two-dimensional picture plane and possesses a sculptural gravitas which underscores its conceptual rigor. Elegantly arching upward and spanning the height of the composition, the organic, asymMetricas l curvature of the grey panel endows Gray Curve Relief with an unresolved tension, a dichotomous push and pull between curved and straight line, symmetry and asymmetry, order and chaos. Among the thirteen reliefs from the 2009-2010 series exhibited at Matthew Marks Gallery, Gray Curve Relief is one of only two non-black-and-white works, and the only one incorporating gray. The large, asymMetricas l and monochromatic relief is resultingly electric, challenging traditional conceptions of form, space and color while immortalizing Kelly’s refined vision.
In this meditative work, a curved smoke gray panel is placed overtop a rectangular white panel. The synthesized result, though in signature fashion devoid of representation, evokes naturalism through the gray panel’s stone-like curvature and color. Though not explicitly intended to evoke a particular object or experience, Gray Curve Relief is ultimately a deep investigation into the essence of life and of nature. Kelly has explained: “As we move, looking at hundreds of different things, we see many different kinds of shapes. Roofs, walls, ceilings are all rectangles, but we don’t see them that way. In reality they’re very elusive forms. The way the view through the rung of a chair changes when you move even the slightest bit – I want to capture some of that mystery in my work. In my paintings I’m not inventing; my ideas come from constantly investigating how things look.” (Ellsworth Kelly, “The Shape of Seeing: Ellsworth Kelly’s Photographs,” 1991, p. 45)
"As we move, looking at hundreds of different things, we see many different kinds of shapes. Roofs, walls, ceilings are all rectangles, but we don’t see them that way. In reality they’re very elusive forms. The way the view through the rung of a chair changes when you move even the slightest bit – I want to capture some of that mystery in my work. In my paintings I’m not inventing; my ideas come from constantly investigating how things look."
From temple facades of the ancient west to civic buildings in the contemporary east, relief has enduringly functioned as a way to both literally and figuratively elevate an image. Kelly has spoken of his affinity for this practice, noting: “In Paris in the late ’40s, I started making my first reliefs. They are separate panels. I wanted to do something coming out of the wall, almost like a collage. I did a lot of white reliefs when I started because I liked antique reliefs, really old stuff…Roman and Greek reliefs. And then the Romanesque works in the 12th and 13th centuries, where they did a lot of relief sculptures of figures. I had liked Romanesque art from the very beginning of my studies…” (Gwyneth Paltrow, “Ellsworth Kelly,” Interview Magazine, September 24, 2011) Harnessing this tradition and employing it through the simplified forms of rectangle and curve, Kelly further imbues Gray Curve Relief with meaning, entrenching it into an art historical discourse beginning far before his t.mes .
A culmination of decades of artistic innovation, Gray Curve Relief exemplifies Kelly’s investment in pushing the limits of space, line, form and color. Through subtle variances in color and contour, the work encourages its viewers to contemplate its position in the space that it occupies—and, thereby,—their own position in the space. Continuing a conversation begun by Kelly over half a century prior to its realization, Gray Curve Relief is an artistic breakthrough achieved at the most mature point in the career of one of contemporary art’s great pioneers.
