Untitled

Untitled

Tony Swain

2003

graphite

From the collection of Museum of Modern Art

About this work

This painting shows sharp, slanted shapes stacked like blocks. Bright colors—yellow, pink, blue—fill the picture, but they’re cut at odd angles. Some shapes have stripes or lines running through them, while others are solid. A dark vertical line on the left looks like a pole or wall, grounding the whole scene. The way shapes overlap and tilt makes it feel like a building exploded into pieces. The artist used real printed paper and cut it into these forms, then painted over it. Try looking up cross-hatching to see how lines create texture in other art.

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