Composition bleue, jaune et grise 1958

Serge Poliakoff made this print, Composition bleue, jaune et grise, and what strikes me is how he builds this world with colour. Look at how the colours sit next to each other. They don’t blend or mix; instead, they create hard edges, almost like pieces of a puzzle. And it's within those blocks of colour that you find all this beautiful variation and texture. The blue has these subtle shifts, like the night sky on a cloudy evening. And that red shape punches through, so full of life. Then, over on the right, you’ve got this smoky grey area hanging over the yellow like a storm cloud, anchored by the solid black shape. I'm reminded of Patrick Heron, another painter who was interested in the possibilities of colour relationships, creating works that leave us wondering how the simplest gestures can evoke complex feelings. It's like Poliakoff is saying, "Here are these colours, these shapes – now, what do you see? What do you feel?"