Green Obliquity
by J. Jay McVicker
Acrylic on canvas
Dimensions: 48 x 48
Purchased through a National Endowment for the Arts grant, 1972
The Artwork
Green Obliquity is an acrylic painting with interchanging bars of white, red, green, and black. A diagonal line breaks the bars across the central horizon of the canvas. The repetition of bars of the placed at the same angle of varying lengths provides rhythm to this optical artwork. The complementary color relationship between the red and green bars help to intensify the visual movement in this composition. The composition is symmetrically designed so that if the work was rotated 180 degrees the same emerge would appear.
The Artist
Born in Vici, Oklahoma, in 1911, J. Jay McVicker earned his Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts from Oklahoma State University. He would later serve as a Professor of Art and lead the art department at Oklahoma State University from 1959 to 1977. His work was represented in many group exhibitions at prestigious institutions including the San Francisco Museum of Art, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Seattle Art Museum, Art Institute of Chicago, and the Dallas Art Museum as well as the Salon Des Realities Nouvelles in Paris, and Galleria Origine in Rome. McVicker's work can be found in many private and public collections including the Library of Congress, Springfield Art Museum, and the Seattle Art Museum.