Yijun – Page 2 – Visual Arts

Abstract expressionist and color painter Helen Frankenthaler has a way of ignoring boundaries in her approach to paint. She uses the soak-stain technique, directly pouring oil paint on the untreated oil cloth, so that the paint penetrates into the canvas and make the painting look like watercolor effect. Although inspired by Jackson Pollock’s action painting and Marks Rothko’s color-field painting, Frankenthaler did not adhere to form or rules but developed a highly personalized form of painting. Based on the soak-stain technique, she uses color and canvas to create a two-dimensional visual field. There is no deliberate sense of order in Frankenthaler’s works, no brush strokes or textures. The colors in each painting can flow, diffuse and permeate naturally on the canvas. Taking Flood (1967) as an example, in this painting, translucent pink and orange waves beat against blue and green stripes, and all the colors seem to flow.

Although abstract expressionism is formally composed of abstraction and expression, its core is surrealism. Since the color immersion in Frankenthaler’s paintings has obvious contingency and spontaneity, her works are also characterized by surrealism. In addition, in the choice of color, the angle of operation and the control of dosage, Frankenthaler’s works has personality trait and reveals its elegant personal cultivation and taste.