Art I'm Making: Unintentional Political Commentary

My art is not and never has been political. Most of the art I create is entirely abstract. Composition has always been my focus. It is the formal relationships between compositional elements that interests me. I think of my abstract collage pieces as silent "conversations" between the shapes and lines and patches of color they are made of. 

Yesterday, I finished a new collage. Untitled Collage No. 242 (Santa Rosa). This is a large piece for me, 33.2 x 41.4cm, or 12.7 x 16.3 inches. Like most of my work recently, it is a collage of acrylic monotyped papers that I make myself.

When I looked at it this morning, I saw in it something unintended. Suddenly it looked to me like a field of ripe grain with a backdrop of a dark, threatening sky and I realized that I had created a sort of dark version of the Ukrainian flag that we have seen so often since the start of Russia's war on Ukraine. I stress that this was entirely unintentional and unconscious. Yet, there it is.

For the record, art aside, I stand with the people of Ukraine—and all oppressed people, foreign and domestic.