Etel Adnan, Colour is all a painter needs

Etel Adnan shows colour alone is all that the painter needs

The ulimate experience - Crashing waves by Mary Heilmann

The iconic peak of Mount Tamalpais near San Francisco was visible from her apartment.  Along with this and natural shapes and forms of the landscape like triangles, squares and circles, Adnan found her own way forward. Form and mass penetrated her soul and found their way on to her canvases as she painted her spatial experiments. The resulting paintings certainly had the power to affect the soul of the viewer. Adnan painted her canvases on a table in a room in her apartment.  She uses a palette knife to create buttery slabs of pure colour, often using oil paint directly from the tube.

Paul Klee, Castle and Sun 1928 All rights remain with the artist ©Paul Klee

Paul Klee, the German artist, was a significant influence for Adnan.  Klee came to prominence in the 1920s while teaching at the Bauhaus. Like Adnan, Klee began by working in a different field. Then in 1914 the violinist visited Tunisia and overwhelmed by the inspiring light started painting.  Klee began to create a harmony of colours using rectangles on a canvas.  He believed that colour could create different responses, similar to the way that music keys do.  Klee composed his paintings like he was making a symphony.  There is a surprisingly similar approach in Adnan work, but an altogether different looking outcome.

Etel Adnan shows colour alone is all that the painter needs

Etel Adnan's site

Etel Adnan, Untitled 2014 All rights remain with the artist ©Etel Adnan

Adnan later said it was poetic justice that she came to painting through poetry, and she discovered that the reality she saw in her art was up for grabs.  Through observing nature, Adnan’s use of the sun, mountains and the horizon suggests a world seen through tinted glasses.  Each painting has a spirit, a lifting force that makes you feel warm inside.  Adnan paintings encourage us to look at the world and then look beyond what we think we see.  She understands the rules and power of colour along with natural know-how of how to use them. I felt that her abstract values were like a path to some kind of truth.  Her work says that colour alone is all that the painter needs.

Etel Adnan shows colour alone is all that the painter needs

What I see in Tal R’s paintings

If you find Etel Adnan’s work speaks to you, please click the link to look at my response to Adnan’s work.