Victor Pasmore

In the early 1960s, Victor Pasmore produced some of his most radical abstract works. Having abandoned figurative painting in favour of geometric abstraction in the late 1940s, he developed a series of relief constructions that extended painting into three dimensions. Abstract in White, Black, Maroon and Indigo exemplifies this phase of his practice, in which carefully arranged geometric elements explore the relationships between form, space and colour.
Separated from the cluster of green, indigo and black shapes, stands a maroon block protruding diagonally and upwards, introducing a strong visual contrast and interrupting the otherwise compact arrangement.
The large white ground plays an important role in the composition. Its expansive empty surface creating a sense of clarity and calm, allowing the small geometric elements to appear almost suspended within the pictorial field. At the same time, the projecting forms cast intersecting shadows that emphasise their physical presence and draw attention to the depth of the construction.
Pasmore viewed these constructions as experimental investigations into the language of pure form. He described relief construction as "an experimental development intended to extend the reality of flat painting," the aim being to create optical ambiguity and encourage the viewer's eye to move beyond the boundaries of the rectilinear format (letter to Leif Sjoberg, 1987). Closely aligned with ideas of modern technology and architecture, these works function not as representations of the visible world but as carefully structured arrangements of form. Through its restrained palette and balanced composition, Abstract in White, Black, Maroon and Indigo demonstrates this approach with particular clarity, inviting the viewer to reconsider the pictorial plane as an active spatial field in which colour, structure and depth interact.