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Dana Gordon
Running the Light (Abstract painting)

1998

About the Item

Running the Light (Abstract painting) Gouache on matte board. Unframed. This work is part of an early series made in 1998 where Gordon explored with free flowing interacting with color and shape. Dana Gordon is an American abstract painter whose work for many years has explored playful shapes, and vivid colors to display an exuberant abstraction. As a multidisciplinary artist, Gordon also writes about art, has designed sets for opera and dance, and, in the period 1968-78, made avant-garde films as well as paintings. He lives and works in New York City. Early in his career, Gordon produced shaped, three-dimensional canvases for about ten years. But in the mid-1970s, he "started over" (as he puts it), re-exploring painting directly from its most basic components, using mark-making and line as his main vehicle or entry point. The results, from series to series, have sometimes leaned more to linearity, other times to clusters of marks, and still other times to the shapes that were delineated. The qualities of lines and calligraphy varied across a whole range, from infinitely thin pencil lines (edges of shapes) to very broad brushstrokes, wide enough to be shapes themselves. In his 2010-2014 paintings, the line has become the edge of shapes, providing distinct areas for full expression of color. Gordon also thinks of the single shapes, adjoining shapes, and clusters of shapes as little paintings in themselves, within the larger whole painting. In his practice, the artist doesn’t use earth colors or black, but only spectral colors creating clear, specific and strong artworks. Asked about his approach to color, Gordon said: "A painter needs pure color like a composer needs pure precise tones."
  • Creator:
    Dana Gordon (1944, American)
  • Creation Year:
    1998
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 15.99 in (40.6 cm)Width: 19.69 in (50 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
    First hand item, delivered directly from the artist's studio.
  • Gallery Location:
    London, GB
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU65939556732

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