Pause

After weeks of experiencing a flurry of bright, nascent spring colors on my farm in Martha’s Vineyard. As the oaks sprout the brightest green leaves, and the lawns prosper. And my astilbe garden bursts into bright flowers of pink, magenta and red. I needed a sort of pause from color. A rest, so to speak–and explored this study of gray. It was an act of restraint in modulating the grey stripes without much variation.

The painting is marked by two darker horizontal stripes, which anchor the composition, and make an (amusing?) allusion to a sign of the painting’s title. This is one of my most monochromatic paintings, bordering on boring but feels enduring. Sober, and meditative, a welcome cool oasis in my too-agile imagination.

–STELIOS author of The Oculus