A strong column of color is the focus of this piece, a solitary figure in the painting placed just slightly off-center in the painting’s frame. A wide range of colors is featured in this column, which calls to mind a Native American totem pole. The colors featured in the column are very naturalistic colors – browns, a deep midnight blue, and a flowery pink. The brown and blue segments have very distinct borders between them. By contrast, the pink seems to blend into the blue segments, their edges blurred and overlapping.
Pink, which is typically thought of as a feminine color, is only a small section of this figure. Yet it is present, and slowly blending with and encroaching upon the rest of the column. If this column represents a totem pole, then the pink segment’s encroachment indicates the female power that was quietly present in cultures that were primarily patriarchal, as many Native American societies were.
The painting’s simplicity lends power to its meaning. A single, colorful column in placed in a stark background of white, the figure in the painting quite striking. Visually, the painting is simple, yet forceful, and it prompts the viewer to further contemplation.
©1998-2009 Claretta Taylor Webb. All Rights Reserved
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