Looking Outwards 06: Randomness

“Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance” is an abstract piece of artwork created by Ellsworth Kelly. Rather than the focus on a particular style or personal artistic preferences, his artwork hones in on randomization and chance. This particular piece consists of eight collages plastered with hundreds of colored squares. Through the use of a mathematical system, colored paper slips were randomly numbered. These numbers correlated to eighteen different color hues that were then put on the canvas grid. Squares were placed on the collage in a systematic manner, removing himself and his judgement from the process.

Kelly’s artistic sensibilities manifest in this piece with his experimentation and belief that any color could go with any other color. Inspired by expressive artistic freedom, Kelly used a unique approach for each collage of squares by working with one color at a time. This particular piece is interesting to me because it seems like the collage of colored squares are strategic, but it was created purely off of randomization.