David Richard Gallery is pleased to present, 5x5 Color Grid Paintings: Selections from 1984 to 2020 by Robert Swain. This presentation includes six unique, square paintings, all acrylic paint on canvas from 1984 through 2020. They represent a couple of very successful series of color-based grid paintings by Swain, each measuring 5-foot square, hence, “5x5”. The unique aspect of the series from 2015 is the composition with the central vertical column of colors that have a distinct palette, mostly focused on hues of blue in these selections, that is flanked by mirrored hues or distinct portions of the color spectrum with comparable values on each side of the center column.

This presentation follows the Gallery’s recent exhibition for Swain, 5x5 Color Grid Paintings: The 30-Inch and 36-Inch Square Studies, focused on smaller, scaled studies of some of these same paintings and series. Together, both exhibitions include a dozen works that survey a selection of series and color investigations spanning four decades based on the 5x5 color grids. Swain’s iconic grid compositions provide the structure and systematic approach for furthering his career-long characterization of colors using his novel system of categorizing hues, values, and saturations as he explores the interaction between colors and their effect on human visual perception.

The focus for each of Swain’s compositions is solely on the colors: their adjacency to each other, interaction with one another, and the resulting effect on the viewer’s perception of color. Therefore, the colors are the content and subject of each painting. This statement is meant to distinguish the actual content (the colors) from the grid in each composition. The grid is the structure, or architecture, of each painting that contains distinct colors in individual squares that each measure 12 x 12 inches in size. This last clarification also makes an important point, each square contains only one homogeneous color which is critical for the viewer to perceive and understand the significance of what they see, both in their eye and mind.

Swain continues his formal approach of using the square as his compositional element of choice for characterizing over 5,000 colors, including their values and degrees of saturation. But, more specifically, he uses the elemental square and resulting grid compositions to elucidate the color blending between adjacent hues that observers experience while viewing his iconic paintings. Swain’s artwork and life-long project is studying the human response to color. His paintings are much more than grids of color, they represent 50 years of systemic studies of how color and color juxtapositions affect the way human’s view color and the corresponding effects on the human psyche.