Yellow Gate

A soft weather of color drifts across the page: rose, ash-grey, and chalk white laid in thin, breathy veils. At the center a bright, imperfect rectangle of lemon–naples yellow flares like a lantern behind fog. It doesn’t sit flat; scumbled paint lets earlier layers whisper through, so the yellow feels lit from within rather than simply applied. A horizontal band of grey bisects the composition, a quiet “horizon” that steadies the field while pushing the yellow forward.

The drawing rides on top of this atmosphere—graphite and crayon lines that wander, snag, and collide. On the left, a thicket of crimson marks gathers like brambles or nerve endings; on the right, tall verticals and a diagonal seam pull upward, creating a gentle torque. Nothing is literal, yet the cues are bodily and landscape at once: a clearing, a pulse, a corridor of light. Surfaces shift from silky glazes to dry, dragged passages that catch the tooth of the paper; scratches and erasures keep the skin of the painting alive, evidence of testing and revision.

Color is the drama and the balm. Cool greys and lilacs temper the sugar of pink, while the yellow—neither lemon nor gold, more like sunlight through cloth—acts as a focal organ. The red scribbles are the counterpoint, a necessary thorn to the pastel hush. The result is a poised imbalance: tender but not tame, spacious yet charged. Spend time with it and the geometry loosens into rhythm; the eye follows lines as if reading a map, arriving again at the luminous center where the painting’s quiet heat resides.