Pink Flutter

Pink Flutter is a vibrant cascade of color and texture. Bright pink and cadmium orange acrylic paints drift across the painting’s surface, and a dusting of aluminum adds a subtle, shimmering sheen. The result is a hazy abstraction that seems to float and flit—true to the painting’s name. To create this work, Sam Gilliam applied his materials to a large canvas, then—while the surface was still wet—folded it accordion-style, crumpled it up, and left it overnight in his studio. When unfolded, a mirrored pattern reminiscent of a Rorschach inkblot test emerged. Finally, Gilliam opted to mount this canvas on a stretcher with unconventional beveled edges, which gives the painting a dimensional presence. This process blended deliberate technique with chance to create unexpected results. It also offered a challenge to the confines of traditional painting, one of many issued by Gilliam and his like-minded peers in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They experimented with form, material, and presentation to create a sense of depth and movement on two-dimensional surfaces. “The surface is no longer the final plane of the work,” Gilliam explained. “It is instead the beginning of an advance into the theater of life.”