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Abstract Inquiry · 2023
Silver Frame
In a private collection
The container as inquiry — what the silver frame holds and what the act of holding changes.
Silver Frame (2023) is about containment — about what we choose to hold, what we exclude, and how the act of framing changes everything. This 48 x 72 inch mixed media painting from the Geometric Splendor Collection uses minimalist structure and luminous restraint to ask questions about boundaries and focus.
The work features a bold rectangular silver edge — not a perfect line, but one that wavers slightly, like something hand-forged rather than machine-made. Inside the frame lies negative space: a foggy field of soft grays, pale lilacs, and barely-there textures that shimmer faintly under light. Outside the frame? More of the same — suggesting that the frame didn’t divide content, but changed its meaning.
I painted Silver Frame while thinking about how we define importance — how a simple line or label can turn one thing into “art” and another into “background.” The painting is less about the frame as object, and more about framing as a decision.
This piece draws inspiration from the conceptual clarity of Donald Judd, particularly his exploration of how structure creates perception. Like Judd, I’m interested in repetition, control, and interruption — and how abstraction invites us to consider not just the image, but the system around it.
Silver Frame doesn’t contain. It reveals how we contain. It points to the frame, not the thing framed — asking you to see what’s around the edge, what’s implied, what’s erased.
As part of the Geometric Splendor Collection, this piece holds presence through simplicity, and power through suggestion.
Where to see it. In person at RituStudio, Phoenix, by appointment. Represented by Jarrow & Goodman, Los Angeles.
The space it needs
- Wall
- At least 8 ft wide
- Ceiling
- 9 ft or more
- Light
- Natural light preferred — oil layers shift through the day
- Daylight
- Mostly muted white and spectral gray, it holds steady in daylight; only the amber warms under afternoon sun. A bright room suits it, though very strong direct light can bleach the pale grays together.
Lives best in
Living room 5/5
Silver Frame earns its 5 here because the wavering amber line that defines its edge invites the kind of sustained, circling attention a living room makes possible, and the oil layers genuinely change character as afternoon light crosses them.
Hotel lobby 4/5
At 6 by 4 feet the work commands a lobby wall without overwhelming it, and the muted white and spectral gray read as calm from a distance while rewarding the guest who pauses long enough to notice the line's indecision.
Details
- Size
- 6 × 4 ft (W × H)
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Year
- 2023
- Collection
- Abstract Inquiry
- Palette
- Muted White · Spectral Gray · Amber · Deep Gray
- Weight
- About 45 lb
Its ArtGram
ArtGram.Sprig
- Texture2
- Form4
- Colour range2
- Palette4.9
- Contrast3
- Abstraction Quotient3
