Composition From a Series 'Compositions With Colored Square Shapes' 1981

Hryhorii Havrylenko made this composition with colored squares in watercolor, and I’m really drawn to the push and pull between the shapes. It's like he's tossing the squares up in the air and capturing them mid-fall. The texture in this piece is really interesting. It’s not a smooth wash, you can see the grain of the paper coming through the layers of paint. There’s a kind of rawness to the surface, and I think that rawness gives the piece a certain honesty, a sense of immediacy. Look at the burgundy half-circle near the top! It is almost hidden, but it draws your eye like a magnet. That dark shape complicates the other, straight-edged forms. I’m reminded of the work of Josef Albers, with his focus on simple geometric forms and his interest in color relationships, but with a bit more playful energy. It’s like Havrylenko is having a conversation with Albers, but in his own, unique visual language. Art is always like that - a conversation!