The power of color is best shown by an artist whose ideas and work can challenge others and create thoughts and environments that we, the observers, could not see on our own, changing not only the physical space in front of us but also our own created mindset.

Today we are featuring two contemporary painters whose work happens to be perfect for palette inspiration Ruth Root and Kenji Hirata.

Ruth Root

Ruth Root’s large scale geometric panels draw from the lineage of non-objective painting. Evoking reference to Piet Mondrian, Ellsworth Kelly, and Olivier Mosset, Root’s playfully orchestrated compositions engage with the fundamental principles of formalism while simultaneously interacting with contemporary modes of interpretation.

Rendered on shaped, ultra-thin aluminium sheeting, Root’s paintings corrupt the idea of pre-fab form. Confined to the curvilinear borders of her canvas, Root’s componentized swatches of colour reveal an unorthodox organic quality transgressing the tradition of the grid as sigmoid fields, and allowing the seamless application of her paint to slightly bevel at the sharply cropped edges. Root’s paintings are often exhibited flush to the gallery walls, creating an allusion to decaled logotypes and an optical intervention with architectural space.

Though primarily concerned with the tautology of painting itself, Root is often inspired by the phenomenon of urban experience. Her bold industrial colours and aesthetically ordered geometries invoke cityscapes, product design, and 1960s technographics. The liminal quality of her paintings elicits dialogue with digitised media: the consummate flatness of her paintings condenses the illusions of solidity and space into virtual fields, compelling in their dynamic assertion and physically insubstantiality.
- Saatchi Gallery

You can find more of Ruth’s work here, here, and here.

Kenji Hirata

Kenji Hirata’s artwork in form and color is strongly inspired by nature, billboards and hand painted signage of SOutheast Asia, futurism.

The Theme that runs through Hirata’s body of work is a stroy he has created, in which an entire universe exists. His paintings, drawings, and films provide glimpses into this universe.

Hirata has developed a language of icons and symbols, which take on new meanings as they are combined and reombined throughout his abstract and figurative work.

Hirata creates his work for an open mind. he intends to speak to the childlike part of the viewer that is not jaded and can imagine the right direction for the future with clear vision.

More work from Ruth Root + Kenji Hirata