In 1969 Frankenthaler wrote of Mauve District, "It relates to a theme which appears on-and-off, of pictures that often have one central vast shape, district, or territory; in this case, the shape itself (a square) is a play on the very shape of the canvas." The artists delight in spatial play is also evident in the wedge of exposed raw canvasa common motif in her work. Although it is a negative space, it also conjures the edge of a tilted square a form that can be perceived as either advancing or receding in relation to the mauve square it borders. "I have always been concerned with painting that simultaneously insists on a flat surface and then denies it," Frankenthaler has said.
Gallery label from 2009.
