Segment of an Unknown Journey

Acrylic painting by Ralph White

in “A Ralph White Retrospective”

Gallery 1313 through Nov. 30

As I climb the stairs of Gallery 1313, a large canvas to my right seems to extend a sort of magnetic force in my direction. In a room spilling over with bold, exploding color, I’m pulled toward the serene, luminous hum of the piece. Segment of an Unknown Journey warmly illustrates sections of two huge spheres in gold, orange, and blue, the deep yellows intensifying near the center as if the canvas is glowing with an internal light. Cropped at top and bottom, the painting magnifies the very point where the two shapes nearly touch. Streaks of green pull vertically from the upper and lower edges of the canvas toward the center, adding tension to the globes’ near-contact. Down the center of the piece travels a dark-stained, umbilical crease bisecting the two symmetrical bodies, sketching either a bridge or a boundary. The overall effect is one of lush, vibrant saturation of color. Segment of an Unknown Journey is immediately suggestive of both the micro- and macrocosm, of microscopic and telescopic views. While it bears resemblance to a dye-drenched photo of a living cell the moment after mitosis, Segment of an Unknown Journey also brings to mind one of those startling polychrome pictures of distant, light-smeared celestial bodies taken by the Hubble telescope. Even the acrylic texture of this painting is planetlike: smooth, with tiny nubs and imperfections, but with one large, rough crater like the Sea of Tranquility on the moon.

This article appears in November 8 • 2002.

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