Museum

The artwork I chose was a very large acrylic on canvas by Frank Stella entitled Damascus Gate Stretch Variation from 1986. It was located in the ‘Benches & Binoculars’ Exhibit along with 67 other paintings, which took up 2 very large, tall walls. The first reason this particular work caught my eye among the many other paintings was its sheer size. I would guess that this work is 5 to 6 feet tall and about 25 feet long.
It is an abstract painting, just like all the other paintings on the south wall. It has a theme of repetition, also like many of the other paintings on this wall. What I noticed that was different was that there didn’t seem to be a definite pattern in the repetition of lines like the other paintings had. The shapes in the painting were many colored half circle shapes that either had the top half or the bottom half of a circle intertwined. It was hard to tell which part of each was on top of, or below another.
What I find to be especially interesting about this piece is that it is visually exciting and calming at the same time. It is exciting because of all the curving layers intertwining each other and the bright colors popping out at you, and calming because you still get a sense of horizontal lines framing the work and tying all the lines together.