Audio Description (02:21)

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Invocation from 1985 is a huge painting at just over ten-and-a-half feet wide and six-and-a-quarter feet high. Jules Olitski has created an artwork that feels like it may be as much sculpture as painting, though it is clearly made of acrylic paint applied to a flat rectangular canvas. The sculptural feeling comes from Olitski’s incredibly thick application of the paint. The strokes are extremely wide, curving, bending, or moving straight across in short, energetic bursts. They overlap every which way, and each wide stroke ends in a frothy peak like meringue. From far away, the shadows that fall below these peaks could be mistaken for darker painted lines. Nearly all of the canvas is covered by these highly-textured swathes of paint in what seems like mostly grayish-white with scattered gold and pale cantaloupe-orange areas. Over all of this, tiny dark dots and drips cover the space like celebratory confetti thrown up high before landing where it will. There are segments along much of the canvas’s edges of smooth, flat indigo, and even more segments of dark, wavering lines of tangerine applied with a narrow brush and without any apparent texture.

Coming in close, even more colors make their presence known. The odd dash of bubble-gum pink, moss green, bright purple, or red-orange show up here and there. All of the colors seem not so much mixed or blended. Rather, they mingle with the white. Depending on the angle the painting is viewed from, this mingling of colors may reveal a shifting iridescent quality. And it can be hard to tell whether the colors were added after the white or if they may instead be base colors that the white was painted onto.

Stepping back from the artwork, some of the colors appear to fade or shift. Areas may become more reflective, while others seem shadowy, foggy, and less distinct. And it all could shift as the viewer moves. The playful texture of the peaks and the inviting glow of the gold and cantaloupe invites the viewer to step back close again and explore the vast landscape for any other treats that might be on offer.