The sun and moon over the fields

by Tiara Kroes

At the top of this work hangs a large, round shape in yellow, orange, red and magenta. Is it a sun, a moon, a fruit? The work leaves this open to interpretation. Beneath it, a dark band of violet and deep blue curves around the shape, as if it were supporting it or, conversely, embracing it. The lower section is more earthy: green, ochre yellow and reddish-brown, with layers that blend into one another like soil and water.

If you look closely, you can see how the paint has behaved. Within the round shape, colours have merged, leaving fine edges where they dried. In the top left, the shape in red and orange chalk steps out of the rectangle onto the white paper, and in the bottom left, a soft orange shape extends just beyond the edge. In the top right-hand corner, a patch of green and turquoise emerges.

The work belongs to the same series as ‘Colourful Fields’ and was created in the same way: wet-on-wet, quickly and intuitively, with chalk as the final layer.

It raises the question of whether you are looking at something that is emerging or fading away. Light and dark lie close together here, and perhaps that is precisely the point: one cannot exist without the other.

In a light-coloured interior, the work brings warmth and provides a strong focal point. Against a dark wall, however, the circular shape actually stands out, and the white of the paper takes on greater expressiveness.