In my recent “X Squared” Series I combine vibrant colors with the ideas espoused by the Color Field “school” artists whose paintings are characterized primarily by large fields of flat, solid color spread across the canvas creating areas of unbroken surface and a flat picture plane. The Color Field movement placed less emphasis on gesture, brushstrokes and action in favor of an overall consistency of form and process. In this respect the colors are freed from objective context and become the subject itself.

I also find, generally speaking, musical notes and colors have a common attribute. Musical notes are as individual as colors. Both have a primitive charm that flows through the brain to inundate our emotions. Colors, like musical notes, stimulate certain moods. Combinations of colors like music can evoke joy, excitement, fear, anger - any number of emotions - while the used of geometry in my paintings provides balance and stability just as music uses structure to create melody and harmony. It should be obvious that the X Squared Series paintings are more akin to jazz than classical music in their construction and composition.

As the Hans Hofmann wrote, “The world comes to us through the mystic realm of color. Our entire being is nourished by it.”

My work is in a number of private collections in the U.S. and Canada and my paintings have been subject to several one man shows and included in many group exhibitions. Awards have been many beginning with a first place in Drawing, 1965 Minnesota Fine Arts Department Annual Exhibition. Most recent works can be seen on my web site: www.mgriesgraber.com