Wedgewood

This painting, Wedgewood, was a difficult venture into transparency and lightness. Trying to achieve a recurrent texture of white under something almost as pale. I love the chalkiness of actual Wedgwood china, and its fragile, tender, pale blue. Sometimes, imbued with a smokiness that made it melancholy more than pretty.

I was challenged by my own donnée of larger stripe widths and trying to achieve visual interest in such larger spaces. The small stripes at the top and bottom act as parentheses for the large stripes, and frame the painting. A new geometric composition that hints of work to come.

I was aware here of creating a work that looked rougher, textured but without too-visible a brush-stroke. Like a work-in-progress, almost done but not quite. Should I have titled this ‘Unfinished Wedgewood’? But then again: is any painting really ever finished?

–STELIOS author of The Oculus