Dawn's Road 1970

Kenneth Noland made this painting, Dawn's Road, with acrylic on canvas. The title already gets me thinking about color because it gives me a cue, like the sun rising. The color is stained into the canvas, and it's almost like a dye, so the color is very much IN the surface. That big peachy expanse, it's not exactly flat – you can sense the weave of the canvas, and the way the color pools in some areas more than others. It feels intuitive. And then you get these bands of yellows and whites, a touch of green at the very top and bottom. It's like he’s pushing and pulling at our perception, making us ask, what is this color doing to us? Noland made a whole career out of these color experiments, and it makes me think of someone like Agnes Martin and her subtle grids and color washes. Art is always talking to art, right? It's about having a conversation across time. There is not one answer.