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Red
stimulates the senses. The red of children's toys is unmistakable. Red
features in nightlife and romance.
In visual art, ideas of "play" and "red" extend to perception and the senses. The red ground of Jules pushes out from the painting, contrasting with the deep space of the black circles. Out of Miller Brittain's sombre palette, red highlights accentuate the social satire in his Depression-era work.
In visual art, ideas of "play" and "red" extend to perception and the senses. The red ground of Jules pushes out from the painting, contrasting with the deep space of the black circles. Out of Miller Brittain's sombre palette, red highlights accentuate the social satire in his Depression-era work.
Keith Haring Untitled (Ringed Figure), 1987 © The Estate of Keith Haring
Marcel Barbeau Jules, 1963
Miller Brittain The Rummage Sale, 1940 © J. Brittain
Léon Bellefleur The Fish in
the City, 1946
Joyce Wieland
Cooling Room II, 1964
Jessie Oonark Inuit Riding on the Boats, 1975
Keith
Haring
Untitled (Ringed Figure), 1987
© The Estate of Keith Haring
Originally, Keith Haring's work was graffiti-like; it popped up on subway walls and sidewalks in New York City in the early 1980s. Iconic images, like the stick figures of children's drawings, were central to his art. Haring's whimsical and humorous style lends itself to solid colours; indeed, the three sculptures in the National Gallery collection are red, yellow, and blue.
Untitled (Ringed Figure) is a large, three-dimensional cut-out painted shiny red. When it's installed outdoors, children often climb on the sculpture, as they would in a playground. Red, throughout this series of sculptures, underlines playfulness.
Untitled (Ringed Figure), 1987
© The Estate of Keith Haring
Originally, Keith Haring's work was graffiti-like; it popped up on subway walls and sidewalks in New York City in the early 1980s. Iconic images, like the stick figures of children's drawings, were central to his art. Haring's whimsical and humorous style lends itself to solid colours; indeed, the three sculptures in the National Gallery collection are red, yellow, and blue.
Untitled (Ringed Figure) is a large, three-dimensional cut-out painted shiny red. When it's installed outdoors, children often climb on the sculpture, as they would in a playground. Red, throughout this series of sculptures, underlines playfulness.
Marcel
Barbeau
Jules, 1963
Three large black spots are cut into a bright red rectangle surrounded by a white ground. Try staring at these spots for thirty seconds, then look away. You will see spots everywhere. Barbeau uses optical illusion to play on the viewer's perception, by means of simplicity of form and harsh contrast of colour, black against red. This kind of work, known as "Op Art," is a formal investigation of how paint application affects perception.
Jules captured this spirit of spontaneity and experimental approach at a time when artists were seeking new forms to challenge traditional pictorial convention. The black holes are portals to another world. Hypnotic, they do not stay still. Barbeau has succeeded in creating a painting in motion.
Jules, 1963
Three large black spots are cut into a bright red rectangle surrounded by a white ground. Try staring at these spots for thirty seconds, then look away. You will see spots everywhere. Barbeau uses optical illusion to play on the viewer's perception, by means of simplicity of form and harsh contrast of colour, black against red. This kind of work, known as "Op Art," is a formal investigation of how paint application affects perception.
Jules captured this spirit of spontaneity and experimental approach at a time when artists were seeking new forms to challenge traditional pictorial convention. The black holes are portals to another world. Hypnotic, they do not stay still. Barbeau has succeeded in creating a painting in motion.
Jessie
Oonark
Inuit Riding on the Boats, 1975
In this aerial view we look down at two avataks, traditional Inuit boats, each with a paddling figure in profile. The small image is printed in the middle of a large white ground. This serigraph print by Jessie Oonark is in keeping with her use of sharp colours and symmetrical images to show traditional Inuit life.
Oonark was a prolific creator, making up to sixty drawings per week. She is known for her sense of colour, seen here in the vivid red avataks and paddles contrasting with the blue and brown figures.
Inuit Riding on the Boats, 1975
In this aerial view we look down at two avataks, traditional Inuit boats, each with a paddling figure in profile. The small image is printed in the middle of a large white ground. This serigraph print by Jessie Oonark is in keeping with her use of sharp colours and symmetrical images to show traditional Inuit life.
Oonark was a prolific creator, making up to sixty drawings per week. She is known for her sense of colour, seen here in the vivid red avataks and paddles contrasting with the blue and brown figures.
Joyce
Wieland
Cooling Room II, 1964
While living in New York, Canadian artist Joyce Wieland constructed this work out of found objects. The boxes, stamped "Cooling Room," were found on the street near her studio. Each of the four compartments has a story to tell.
Objects that have personal significance are presented to evoke the viewer's associations. The collapsed plane, for example, relates to Wieland's fear of an airplane crashing into her house. The red fabric, heart-shaped and hanging out to dry, contrasts with the toy plane. One hints at love, the other at disaster. Someone has left a trail of red lipstick on a series of coffee cups in the bottom compartment. This work plays with word associations, like "love hung out to dry." It plays with scale: the engines and clothespins are about the same size. It stimulates new associations with ordinary objects. Wieland's open-ended approach leaves the viewer to unravel the work.
Cooling Room II, 1964
While living in New York, Canadian artist Joyce Wieland constructed this work out of found objects. The boxes, stamped "Cooling Room," were found on the street near her studio. Each of the four compartments has a story to tell.
Objects that have personal significance are presented to evoke the viewer's associations. The collapsed plane, for example, relates to Wieland's fear of an airplane crashing into her house. The red fabric, heart-shaped and hanging out to dry, contrasts with the toy plane. One hints at love, the other at disaster. Someone has left a trail of red lipstick on a series of coffee cups in the bottom compartment. This work plays with word associations, like "love hung out to dry." It plays with scale: the engines and clothespins are about the same size. It stimulates new associations with ordinary objects. Wieland's open-ended approach leaves the viewer to unravel the work.
Miller
Brittain
The Rummage Sale, 1940
© J. Brittain
Rounded female figures, cheeks flushed with excitement, scramble for bargains at the rummage sale. Meanwhile, the children, dwarfed in the midst of the activity, stand blank-faced. Brittain uses the visual device of red to carry the eye through the action of the painting. Hats, clothing, and drapery are painted red. A crowd of women are swarming over goods, and in the front, two of them are struggling over an article of clothing. At the centre of the painting an elderly woman holds up a scarlet garment, looking out at the viewer. Top and centre is a woman sporting a red Robin Hood cap topped with a white feather.
Saint John, New Brunswick artist Miller Brittain painted scenes of urban working life in the 1930s and 1940s. He was known for his social satire at this point in his career, and in The Rummage Sale he highlights the restrained enthusiasm of the treasure-seekers during hard times.
The Rummage Sale, 1940
© J. Brittain
Rounded female figures, cheeks flushed with excitement, scramble for bargains at the rummage sale. Meanwhile, the children, dwarfed in the midst of the activity, stand blank-faced. Brittain uses the visual device of red to carry the eye through the action of the painting. Hats, clothing, and drapery are painted red. A crowd of women are swarming over goods, and in the front, two of them are struggling over an article of clothing. At the centre of the painting an elderly woman holds up a scarlet garment, looking out at the viewer. Top and centre is a woman sporting a red Robin Hood cap topped with a white feather.
Saint John, New Brunswick artist Miller Brittain painted scenes of urban working life in the 1930s and 1940s. He was known for his social satire at this point in his career, and in The Rummage Sale he highlights the restrained enthusiasm of the treasure-seekers during hard times.
Léon
Bellefleur
The Fish in the City, 1946
The Fish in the City, Bellefleur's fantasy world, is a patchwork of colours and textures where a fish is bigger than a clown and a star lies on the ground. The artist was a schoolteacher for many years and looked to children's art for fresh sources of expression. The big ball, the falling clown, the grid of the game-board, and their block-like shapes set this work into a world of toys and play.
Building on this, and influenced by his contemporary Alfred Pellan, he relied on his own subconscious, adopting Surrealist techniques of free association and automatic drawing. The high contrast in colours reflects different states of feeling: bright reds, yellows, and oranges surface out of the darkness of deep blues and greens.
The Fish in the City, 1946
The Fish in the City, Bellefleur's fantasy world, is a patchwork of colours and textures where a fish is bigger than a clown and a star lies on the ground. The artist was a schoolteacher for many years and looked to children's art for fresh sources of expression. The big ball, the falling clown, the grid of the game-board, and their block-like shapes set this work into a world of toys and play.
Building on this, and influenced by his contemporary Alfred Pellan, he relied on his own subconscious, adopting Surrealist techniques of free association and automatic drawing. The high contrast in colours reflects different states of feeling: bright reds, yellows, and oranges surface out of the darkness of deep blues and greens.