03 May 2018

James Little: Slants and White Paintings

June Kelly Gallery

Reviewed by Jill Nathanson

Considerations of their beauty aside, James Little's new paintings move his demonstrated understanding of color one step ahead. His Slants series breaks diagonal bands into four columns and nudges them out of register. Each painting feels like it has a pattern, albeit a broken one. Bars of intense color move diagonally, simultaneously stopped and continuing across columns. Every area of the painting has a unique color structure, while areas mesh to become a whole.

In the large Re-Set (2017), bright colors are punctuated by near-blacks that extend the range of values. These darks have more weight than the other hues, but held in the irregular pattern, they cannot take over as they might, thus adding tension.

In the Slants, one seeks logic but the movement of intense colors, becoming painting-light, doesn't allow for analytics. Instead they further condense the color energies that Little has engaged with throughout his career.