By Donald Schenkel
180 x 120 cm, 2019
Oil on canvas

The way colours and pigments behave has always intrigued Donald. This fascination inspired him to arrange colours in compositions of subtle transition that lets each colour gently flow into another. His foundation in the more conceptual ways of artistic creation makes his approach to traditional materials such as oil paints unique in his field. He reveals the behaviour of colours through his extensive exploration of the material qualities of varying pigments and colours mixtures.
Donald’s gradients demonstrate how certain colours are highly transparent, where others are highly opaque. By allowing these to flow into each other, lighter colours appear to sink into the depths of darker colours. His previous work with cooler colour schemes ranging from blue to green evoke a sense of calm, arousing a contemplative mood in the viewer. Now he achieves this with warmer colours, such as orange, red and purple.