“I know that a work of art has to be about associations that come from some other source than the kind of kinetic perception of a work of art. In other words, how the color, shaping, [and] proportions, quantities cause a kind of energetic reaction.”
— Kenneth Noland
Kenneth Noland’s 1974 Pairs illustrates the artist’s quintessential hard-edged abstraction painted against fields of vibrant color. Choosing to omit dimension and figuration from his practice, Noland took cues from the geometric styles and primary color schemes used in the paintings of Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, and Josef Albers—the latter of whom taught at his alma mater, Black Mountain College. Studying primarily under Ilya Bolotowsky at Black Mountain from 1946 to 1948, the artist became preoccupied with dramatic contrasts between negative and positive space. His studies on the De Stijl art theory as taught by Bolotowsky would continue to resonate with him throughout his career, as he explored the potential of horizonal lines, plaid patterns, and irregularly shaped canvases.
Featuring color bands that differ in width and density, the so-called Plaid paintings such as Pairs allowed the artist to explore the notion of perspective within his abstract paintings. It is through the varying tonalities, opacities, and overlaps of the different stripes that Noland illustrates a background and a foreground. This process is evident in the present work—purple, blue, green, and yellow bands straddle a seemingly textured orange backdrop rolled onto raw linen, tilted on a single axis. The resulting plaid pattern energetically jumps off the diamond-shaped canvas, giving the painting nuanced form. The rotation of the canvas would become a signature of Noland’s practice, and later inspired his shaped, asymmetrical canvases.