The Dying Spheres are the latest in an ongoing, interrelated series. They are not easy – I long to be done with them. Their deeply organic asymmetry disturbs and causes me uneasiness, while the clean circles of the earlier Spheres of Destiny & Variants, Swingeing Spots, Big Looming Assemblages, and Spots of Retribution are the outcome of a pleasing design-based play of geometry, color and texture.

Click on any Sphere below for larger images seen sequentially.

The Dying Spheres pieces were built, like the Spherical Fragments collages, through an additive process; each form developing as scraps and fragments were glued together, then gessoed on both sides. The blank irregular circles, temporarily taped to a large set of prepared paper panels, functioned as stencils while the entire quadriptych was stained with thinned acrylic and rags. This layered staining process simultaneously created both the Dominant Spheres painting and the Dying Spheres pieces.