For this triptych, Walsh printed the same black background on each work but used different colors for the horizontal “screens” he overlaid using woodcut. The perceptual tension created by the interplay of colors and geometries has been an integral part of Walsh’s work since the 1990s, when he first showed his abstract, often gridlike paintings. These prints are related to a 2006–07 painting comprising three panels in orange, green, and violet shown side by side, one of the artist’s earliest experiments with the screen motif. Here Walsh has allowed an organic element—the wood-grain pattern from his plywood printing matrix—to add another dimension to the work, incorporating the material characteristics of the process alongside the formal geometries.
Gallery label from Abstract Generation: Now in Print, March 15–September 2, 2013.
