Seine 1951

Ellsworth Kelly’s ‘Seine’ is a painting made, I'm guessing, with enamel on canvas, and is just a grid of black and white squares. It’s almost like he’s zoomed in so close that we can only see the pixels. It's interesting, though, because it's a painting, so those squares are hand-painted, each one placed deliberately. Look at the way the black seems to swallow up the white towards the middle, like the negative space is pushing forward, like a current. I wonder if Kelly thought about the way water distorts light and reflection when he painted it. The matte surface and the density of the composition is reminiscent of Ad Reinhardt’s black paintings. Both artists invite us to slow down and really look, because within the seemingly uniform surface, there's a whole world of variation and subtle detail. They are both inviting us to reconsider the very act of seeing.