Pretentious Yet Pointless
The beribboned canvas indicates the essential distinction between pattern and texture. Such forms, both monumental and poetic, create a strong interplay of forces. This striking piece is integral to one of the central preoccupations of Sol Aris's art, the perception of the gently contorted upward flying elements where the scale and openness to the piece is the eternal contrast of Yin and Yang. In surrealism, the visual phenomena of the external world are, in themselves, meaningless: the only worthy thing is feeling, as such. The artist employs a rectangular grid to contain the colours, which therefore float free. Sol Aris has not commented on the price of this doodle. In constructive colour theory, the visual phenomena of the unexplored world are, in themselves, empty: the significant thing is feeling, as such. The strongly twisted downward flying components of Sol Aris's previous works are clearly visible here, but transformed.
A notable feature of this doodle is the world of bare hands and the joy of the flying walrus contrasting strongly with the impersonal forms and industrial colours to indicate a division of space that parallels our innermost confusion.
The beribboned figure indicates the pattern of unconscious thought. The dominant angularity and horizontality of Sol Aris's earlier works are still present, but in a different form.
``Paradoxically, this work, which has such an assertive and fascinating physical presence, simultaneously undermines its physical reality by the way in which it reflects, and thus elides or blends with, its surroundings.''
[Tate Gallery Guide, 1990, p.262]