B elonging to Stanley Whitney’s celebrated colour grid series in which the artist explores both the visual and conceptual capabilities of colour, Nigerian Smile is a dynamic and iconic example of the artist’s acclaimed practice. A rhythmic mash-up of reds, blues, oranges, and greens, the present work embodies Whitney’s career-long commitment to his own personal tenants of abstraction, guided by a longstanding process which the artist has developed over the course of the last three decades. Describings these works that appear to have a life of their own, the artist has said: “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).

Whitney’s approach to painting arrived after many years of experimentation that saw the artist draw from a multitude of historical and cultural references, ranging from American quilt making and jazz, to the expansive natural landscape of the American West. Recalling a trip he took in 1984, Whitney said: “I was travelling across the country a lot, and going through landscapes, and sitting up on great spots… Yes, the southwest, the Four Corners, Canyon De Chelly, Grand Canyon, Monument Valley… all the sacred places of the West… the Badlands… North Dakota… And that kind of landscape really influenced me. That kind of openness in space, that kind of light… I really think of it as an American kind of space. A big open space. But it was all about landscape and I didn’t want it to be landscapes, I wanted it to be space” (Stanley Whitney quoted in: Matthew Jeffrey Abrams, “Stanley Whitney: The Ruins,” Gagosian Quarterly, Spring 2020, online). Seeking to find a subject matter that captured his attention, he took to working with pure fields of colour, creating an illusionistic structure that contained both space and air. Exploring foundational elements of colour and space, this became the artist’s profound, life-long pre-occupation.

Writing about Whitney’s unique artistic process, acclaimed critic Roberta Smith explains, “Mr. Whitney’s system is flexible and simple: On square canvases, he arranges sturdy blocks of singing colour into vibrant grids, without benefit of straight edge, reinforcing them with at least three horizontal bands. When these bands match the blocks, space is altered by the effect of banners hanging from ribbons. These grids are always irregular, and slivers of colour often intrude from the edges, implying other blocks that might yet slide into view, creating a different arrangement” (Roberta Smith, “Review: Stanley Whitney’s Paintings Reinvent the Grid”, The New York t.mes s, 16 July 2015, online). Describings this ambition, Whitney said “I wanted something as open as Pollock but as structured as Mondrian. That was a big distance I was trying to work in, that space between those two artists. Which covers a lot of ground, a lot of possibilities” (Stanley Whitney quoted in: Alteronce Gumby, “Oral History Project: Stanley Whitney by Alteronce Gumby,” BOMB, 21 April 2015, online).

 
Whitney’s now iconic solid grids emulate stable structures that remain rhythmic, spontaneous, and erratic in nature. Rather than a proscriptive structure, the grid formation is a liberating compositional tool that enables improvisation through colour, texture, and chromatic intensity. Stanley Whitney’s works are held in prominent museum collects ions, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Long Museum, Shanghai; and The Palazzo Magnani, Reggio Emilia. Recently, Whitney was honoured with a solo exhibition at the Palazzo Tiepolo Passi in Venice in correspondence with the 2022 Venice Biennale. Nigerian Smile pulsates, compresses and expands with a visceral sense of optical and sensorial beauty, illuminating an entirely ground-breaking aesthetic language.

惠 特尼透過著名的彩色方格系列，探索以色彩表現視覺效果和創作概念的可能性，今次上拍的《尼日利亞式微笑》便是這種手法的代表佳作。紅色、藍色、橙色和綠色交錯排列，令畫面呈現出躍然跳動的節奏感，展示了惠特尼憑過去三十年練就的技巧所堅持的抽象風格。他形容，這些作品彷彿擁有生命：「我沒有任何色彩理論。色彩很神奇，我希望作品充滿神奇的力量。我畫上一種顏色，那種顏色就呼喚另一種顏色，這是一種相互平衡。你不會想有一方比另一方強，而是有良好的過渡」（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）。

惠特尼的繪畫風格建立於多年的嘗試之上，他從歷史文化中汲取靈感，無論是手作百家被、爵士樂，還是美國西部的大自然風光，都是他的原始素材。他憶述一場1984年的旅行時說：「我經常在全國各地遊歷，在不同的風景之間穿梭，在風光壯麗的地方閒坐…… 沒錯，美國西南部、四州交界點、謝伊峽谷、大峽谷、紀念碑谷…… 西部所有神聖的地方…… 惡地國家公園…… 北達科他州…… 那種風景確實影響了我。廣闊的天地和奇妙的光綫…… 我真心認爲那是美國獨有的空間。一個何其遼闊的空間。這些地方雖然都是風景，但我不想它們成爲風景，我想它們成爲空間」（引述史丹利・惠特尼，載於馬修・謝夫利・阿布拉姆斯撰，〈史丹利・惠特尼：廢墟〉，《高古軒季刊》，2020年春，網上資源）。惠特尼在尋找能夠吸引自己注意力的素材時，集中以純粹的色域進行創作，組成一個包含空間和氣氛的虛構結構。他借助顏色和空間這兩種基本元素，創造出畢生戮力探索的深刻主題。

對於惠特尼獨特的創作手法，知名藝評人蘿伯塔・史密斯有這樣的評價：「惠特尼的體系靈活簡單：他在正方形的畫布上，把結實的色塊排成活潑的網格，並至少用三條橫置的色帶加強效果，當中沒用上一根直線。當色帶遇上顏色相同的色塊時，會產生絲帶懸掛彩旗的效果，改變空間。這些格子總是不規則的，小片的色彩經常從邊緣侵入，暗示原本有其他可以進入觀眾視野的色塊，排列出不一樣的構圖」 （蘿伯塔・史密斯，〈評論：史丹利・惠特尼的畫作徹底改造方格〉，《紐約時報》，2015年7月16日，摘錄自網絡）。惠特尼則這樣闡述自己的抱負：「我想創造出有如波拉克般開放、又有如蒙德里安般有序的東西。兩位藝術家之間有一大段我嘗試開墾的疆域，那裡十分廣袤，充滿可能」 （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）。

惠特尼的方格系列從穩固的結構中透出韻律、自發和不穩定的本質。這些方格並不是畫地為牢的規限，它們是不受拘束的構圖工具，允許藝術家透過色彩、顏料的質感和深淺自由發揮。惠特尼的作品已進入很多重要博物館收藏，例如紐約的古根海姆美術館和大都會藝術博物館，上海的龍美術館，以及雷喬艾米利亞的馬格納尼宮。2022年，威尼斯雙年展為惠特尼在帖波洛帕西宮舉辦個展。《尼日利亞式微笑》跟隨視覺和感官的美之本能，孕育出脈動不息、收放自如的畫面，令惠特尼突破性的美學語彙變得光彩流溢。