Frank Stella

Frank Stella first came onto my radar whilst I was studying at university. I had experimented a lot with graphic arts and was certainly drawn to abstract work and bold images.

During one critique, my tutor recommended that I took a closer look at the work of Frank Stella and Morris Louis. Once I opened the book on Stella’s work it was love at first sight.

Image taken from www.tate.org.uk

Born May 12 1936, Stella is an American painter and printmaker and a significant figure in minimalism and post-painterly abstraction.

Stella produced a series of prints during the late 1960s starting with a print called Quathlamba I in 1968. Stella’s abstract prints in lithography, screen-printing, etching and offset lithography had a strong impact upon printmaking as an art.

Image appropriated from www.c4gallery.com/artist/database/frank-stella/frank-stel…

Image appropriated from www.araks.com/blog/2009/07/frank-stella.html

His work has influenced me over the years, with the use of colour and the composition of his work, encouraging me to push a little further… obviously I am also influenced by a much cleaner design aesthetic also, but colour has been a strong part of my education as a fascination with how it affects us all in different ways.

Below is a 10-minute film talking with Stella during the 70s when he was in his mid-30s, so for a much more intelligent conversation, do sit back and take it all in…