Yin-Yang

This series of extremely large paintings developed from my study of Far Eastern art, and became my MFA thesis in the early 1970’s.

Sung Dynasty art in China developed the Yin-Yang philosophy of complementarity in landscape painting as well as in other aspects of living. Curiously though, I noticed, Chinese painting rarely seemed to show the “yin” — shadow — of an object.

I decided to implement the Yin-Yang thought system in a Midwestern subject, the quintessential red barn, with the shadow of a natural object softening the linearity of the manmade siding. It worked! I developed a language of light and shadow, each of equal importance and interdependence in the painting.

Some of these paintings have found homes in universities, and one lives at Bell Labs in New Jersey.

Note: all sizes are given in inches, horizontal measurement first.
Click on images below to see enlargements.