Beach Roses

This painting evoked the irregular colors of ripe and unripe rose hips on the rambling rose bushes on the sand dunes near Quansoo Beach. What I loved about Beach Roses is that each stripe had its own unique color. Also, there was no repetition of a color—while they were all derivative of pink.

But this game had its consequences: I found myself trying to order the ten unique voices of each ‘lady’. Ultimately, so they had some harmony, and a choir would emerge out of cacophony.

The stripes were sharp, the color fields quite perfect and not gestural like my later paintings. The migration of peach-orange and chalk-white into the stripes dulled the possible cloying sweetness of all that pure pink. The resultant ensemble seemed strangely sober and feminine, mystical and modern.

–STELIOS author of The Oculus