Abstract Composition 1980

Robert Goodnough made this *Abstract Composition* with blocks of colour clustered together on a white background. It reminds me of aerial views of islands in the Caribbean, all those blues, with red dots scattered through, and then it morphs into a flock of birds. Imagine the artist, maybe on a whim, cutting shapes out of paper and arranging them just so. What were they thinking as they decided where to place each of those tessellated shapes? The cool blues, reds, and greys play against each other to create a loose but defined sense of motion, the negative space around the clusters of colour drawing the eye around the whole surface. You can see that Goodnough was part of the New York School, like Helen Frankenthaler, who poured paint onto canvas. I wonder if he saw her work and thought, 'I want to make something out of that!' It makes you think of what other artists were doing at the time. I think all painters are always looking at each other and borrowing, or stealing, ideas, always trying to push things further.