Paintings Index  |  Richard Horvath Artworks

Modernist Boxes

Modernist Boxes

2007
Oil on canvas
102 x 76 cms

The demographic of the coastal landscape where I live has changed from stoned surfers living in fibro-cement shacks to retired business people living in gleaming oversized houses with smoked glass windows. Modernist Boxes presents one such environment; an expanse of foreground with a street winding towards the vanishing point of the gap in the tea tree, a line of power poles and the silhouette of flat roofed, glass fronted modern buildings sandwiched beneath a featureless sky.

When I collected this painting after being exhibited in a group exhibition I felt it needed more work. The spartan desaturated colour palette required beefing up and the muted stippling of the dots would benefit from a more vigorous reworking. The finished picture, still slightly wet, was entered into another show a week later and won the prize.