Charles Arnoldi

The Ellipses paintings bring together the bright, gorgeous colors of the Hawaiian paintings and the articulation of the ovoid in the Potatoes. However, with this work we have the introduction of multiple panels.

Arnoldi got the idea for multiple-panel paintings when he did a very large (28 by 21 feet) commission painting for an office building in San Francisco. In order to ship it from Los Angeles, he needed the painting to come apart and decided to break it up into smaller, oddly-sized rectangular and square panels. A purely practical matter became the springboard for a new inspiration, which he has been pursuing ever since.