Pretentious Yet Pointless
Contrasts of dark and light emphasise the vastness of this image. The shapes in this prototype, despite appearing disarmingly simple at first glance, create in the mind single-axis asymmetric soft, closed signs with inner and outer crossings... The arena of contrasting salt and pepper of Sol Aris's other works are still present, but in a different form. A particularly contentious aspect of this image is the impersonal forms and industrial colours contrasting strongly with the strangely twisted upward reaching elements so clearly visible. Such forms, rabid and disconcerting, create complex and fascinating interactions with the environment. Sol Aris has not commented on the individuality of this sketch.
``What does it all mean? I have little idea... It seems to make use of an abstract idiom which is skirting very near to mere decorative doodling, rather intricately pretty, and yet it is clearly nothing to do with decoration because it's too obsessed.''
[Tate Gallery Guide, 1990, p.232]