Robert Towne [Los Angeles] 2006

Sarah Morris made ‘Robert Towne [Los Angeles]’ with household gloss paint on canvas - it’s hard to tell, but that’s what I read! I love the flat planes of color here, all these diagonals making up squares, and rectangles, all shifting the architecture around like it was a puzzle. I can imagine Sarah Morris thinking about the way architecture frames our lives, thinking about the relationships between buildings and their surroundings. The palette is cool and synthetic, but with a hint of warmth from the saturated pink. I find myself drawn to the way the color is almost like a commercial facade, trying to make a statement with the bold colors. I imagine the artist standing there, brush in hand, carefully blocking in each shape, her mind racing with thoughts about the language of architecture and how it affects us. It reminds me of the work of Carmen Herrera, another painter who used geometric abstraction to explore spatial relationships. Artists are always riffing off each other, that's how the conversation evolves!