Room 2: Disintegration

First Wall

If proceeding to the bench in the middle of the room, with your back to the entrance to the room, there is a painting behind you on a wall in an 8 o’clock direction. This painting is about 20 feet from the bench.

Pink Line, 1973. Oil on canvas. The Gogel Collection, Dallas, Texas.

Pink Line is a small painting that has a personal scale to it, measuring 34 inches by 34 inches. The canvas is painted a very dark purple-brown color, with some visible brushstrokes creating a textured effect. Although the painting looks like a single color at first glance, closer inspection reveals depth of color and different tints. From certain angles, a deep burgundy shows through the flat, dark purple-black surface. On the right side of the painting about four-fifths of the way across, there is a single vertical purple line—although the title of this artwork is Pink Line, the line is actually a bright violet color. This line looks as though it was hand-painted: the width varies slightly at different points, showing where the artist pulled the brush across the canvas. The strip of color on the right of this line is similar to the rest of the painting, but is an even darker, inkier black.

Second Wall

From the bench, with your back facing the entrance to the room, there are two paintings on a wall in a 3 o’clock direction. This is the same wall as the panel of introductory text for this room. The paintings are about 5 feet away from the bench.

On the right: Principle of Equivalence, 1975. Oil on canvas. Collection of the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, Kansas City, Missouri, Gift of Robert and Sally West, 2012.01.

This painting is covered with a shade of muddy reddish brown, like a large terracotta tile. It is overall a medium-sized painting, measuring around 48 by 60 inches. Throughout the composition, brushstrokes are visible, lending some depth with lighter and darker areas of earthy color. Along the bottom, there is a slightly uneven horizontal black line that is painted thickly with built-up paint. It looks like a clear baseline for the composition, or like a ground in an empty landscape. In the area directly above it, the reddish paint also seems a little thicker. Far above, at the top of the painting, there is one other line, but a very different one: a thin, greyish line is slanted across the painting’s top left corner. It looks as though it is suspended in the air, like a ray of light in smoke.

On the left: Untitled, 1972. Acrylic on canvas. The John and Susan Horseman Collection, Courtesy of the Horseman Foundation, St. Louis, Missouri.

Untitled (1972) is a large portrait-oriented painting measuring 60 inches in height and 48 inches in width. It is an abstract painting from Jaramillo’s Curvilinear series, featuring a similar curved line to other works in this exhibition. However, in this painting a pale red line is pushed to the far left edge, almost becoming part of the background. That line extends from the bottom left-hand corner to the top, curving slightly to the right as it ascends the canvas. Most of the painting is taken up with a wash of inky color: a purple or blue hue that looks layered in cloudy, splotchy shapes. On the right side of the canvas, a section of the painting is covered in another layer of blue, which looks slightly greyer and calmer than the tone of the purplish background. That strip of dusty blue extends vertically along the right-hand side of the painting and takes up about a third of its width.

Third Wall

Returning to the bench, there is another painting across the room in an 11 o’clock direction. If your back is facing the entrance to this room, it is in an 8 o’clock direction from the bench. The painting is about 10 feet away from the bench.

Green Space, 1974. Oil on canvas. Collection of Michael Corman and Kevin Fink, Dallas, Texas.

This medium-sized painting is made up of various shades of green, arranged as a square within a rectangle. The painting measures around 71 inches in height and 83 inches in width overall, forming the rectangle. The painting’s square touches both the bottom and left edges of the painting, taking up a large part of the composition with a definitive form. It does not have edges, but its shades of green are distinct from the others in the painting. While the rectangle is a little yellowish, like dry grass, the square is a more vibrant, herbal green. About a third of the way down from the top of the painting, there is a single horizontal line that cuts across these shapes. As it passes over the square, it is a dark red. About a third from the right of the painting, where the square ends, the line also disappears into a shadowy trace. This smudge of darker color extends across the rest of the rectangle and off the painting’s right edge. Across the whole painting, brush strokes are visible, lending depth and texture in all directions.