The Joker is Wild 2001

Valerie Jaudon’s "The Joker is Wild" is like finding a secret pattern within a deck of cards, maybe made with acrylic or oil paint. It’s a playful dance of geometry where warm yellows and reds flicker and pulse. There’s something so satisfying about the way the solid yellow shapes sit on top of the striated ground of reds and oranges, a little like a stencil was used. The surface has a sort of matte quality, very flat, but there is the suggestion of depth in the subtle variations in the background layers. The composition feels both architectural and ornamental, and the shapes themselves, with their curves and sharp angles, keep your eye moving all over the surface. See how these curves and blocks kind of lock together? This piece reminds me a little of Frank Stella’s earlier work, with the focus on pattern and shape. But with Jaudon, it's less about Minimalism and more about opening up a whole world of visual language that’s both rigorous and full of feeling. Art doesn’t have to make sense, it has to make you feel something.