My work has always expressed my interest of color and spatial relationships in painting. In this recent inquiry, I look closely at the play between surface compositions involving pure white and deeper psychological spaces. The language is highly minimal, structured in the tradition of geometric abstraction – lines and color fields. As many in the New York School of paintings, my compositions are calculated and brush strokes well controlled. Yet, except for the pure white, the lines are never quite straight. They do not speak of absolute truth; they are organic and constantly changing. Often, these lines travel from one edge of the canvas or color field to another, shifting one’s perception of their depths, scales, and colors. On the other hand, the pure white lines are straight and uniform.

They provide a rigid and rhythmic framework against others to emphasize their difference, but the results are often subtle than expected. My spaces are expressed through color fields – always layered with expressive yet, again, controlled brush strokes. The spaces sometimes embody a meditative internal process of various depths and densities, and other times they bring one’s attention right back out to the surface of the canvas – interrupting a private and contemplative state of being. As one shifts from an internal abyss to an external surface, examining across the painted canvas, another set of color, spatial, or psychological relationship may be revealed with a new light.

Justine Lo