Search Results: abstract

Geometric abstract painter Shilo Ratner awarded Best in Show at the 103rd Annual Bendheim Exhibit by the Greenwich Art Society, juried by Geaninne Gutiérrez-Guimarães of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum.

Most paintings get a title, a price, and a few sentences. This one takes a closer look. Beach is a 30 × 30 geometric abstract painting built from the logic of the shoreline, behavior, not appearance. This is a complete breakdown: where it started, how it was built, what changed, and what most people miss. See Beach in the collection → The Initial Idea The starting point wasn't a visual. It was a behavior. I kept returning to the way water moves at the shoreline, not the look of it, but the logic. The tide doesn't repeat exactly. Each wave recedes at a slightly different angle, leaves a slightly different edge, pulls back with slightly different force. There's a system operating, but it never produces the same result twice. A system needs enough repetition to be legible, but enough variation to stay alive. That tension between system and variation is what I wanted to build into a painting. Not a picture of the beach. A painting that works the way the beach works. Building the System The canvas is square, which matters. A square doesn't have a natural direction. It doesn't push the eye left to right or top to bottom the way a landscape format does. That neutrality was useful here, because the movement had to come entirely from the forms themselves, not from the shape of the support. The composition is built from horizontal bands that shift, compress, and interrupt each other. They function as tidal layers: each one moving at a different rate, overlapping without merging. The eye follows the edges rather than any single focal point. There's no center of gravity. The painting holds attention by distributing it. That relationship between rhythm and structure is something I explored more directly in Ebb and Flow Abstract Painting: When Surrender Becomes Creation. I also made a deliberate decision to keep the forms hard-edged. Soft edges would read as atmospheric, impressionistic, wave-like in a literal sense. Hard edges force the geometry to carry the movement instead. The result feels more like a diagram of the coast than a depiction of it. Color Logic The palette is blue and neutral, but the neutrals are doing most of the structural work. A range of warm and cool off-whites sits alongside the blues, and the temperature shifts between them create a subtle spatial push and pull. Warmer neutrals advance slightly. Cooler ones recede. That movement is quiet, but it's what gives the painting depth without relying on illusionistic perspective. The same principle is at work in How Josef Albers Shaped the Way I See Color. The blues are controlled rather than expressive. Some lean toward slate, others toward a washed cerulean, others toward near-gray. Each one is chosen for its relationship to the forms around it, not for emotional effect on its own. The emotion comes from the whole, not any single color. I also kept the value range relatively compressed. High contrast would have created drama. I was after something steadier, calm, but still in motion. The result is a kind of unsettled calm, like watching the tide without needing it to resolve. What Changed Along the Way The early version had more forms, more bands, more interruptions, more variation in width. It was busier, and that busyness worked against the system. I simplified. Removed two horizontal elements entirely. Widened two of the remaining bands so the rhythm slowed down. The painting became quieter, and paradoxically more active, because the eye had room to move between the forms rather than being crowded by them. The frame color also changed. The original frame was a cooler white that competed with the lightest tones in the painting. I switched to a warmer wood finish that separates cleanly from the canvas without pulling attention. What Viewers Don't Notice The edges of the forms are not perfectly parallel. This is intentional. If every horizontal band were exactly parallel, the painting would feel mechanical, static, like a striped field rather than a system in motion. The slight deviations, a degree or two at most, create the sense that the forms are shifting relative to each other. It reads as movement without being obvious about it. Most people also don't notice how few colors are actually in the painting. From a distance it reads as rich and varied. Up close, the palette is spare. That compression is part of the discipline: getting a lot of visual information from a small number of decisions. The bottom edge of the composition is slightly heavier than the top. The forms there are wider, the values slightly darker. It grounds the painting without making it feel weighted down. It's the visual equivalent of the shoreline itself, the place where everything settles before the next wave comes through. If that kind of movement resonates with you, Beach is available as a framed original, 30 × 30 inches, ready to hang. If you'd like to see it in your space before deciding, I'm happy to help with that. You can also browse the full coastal paintings collection for related works. View Beach →  |  Questions: shiloratner@gmail.com

A look at how contemporary landscape painting is shifting in response to climate change, and why abstraction is becoming a critical language for it.

Thinking about commissioning an original painting but not sure what happens next? Here's exactly what the process looks like, from first message to finished work on your wall.

What is minimalist landscape art? Shilo Ratner explores where light ends and dark begins, and how shape, value, and openness keep a landscape alive.

Shilo Ratner's original mixed media works on paper will be featured at Artexpo Dallas 2022 with Jen Tough Gallery, Booth #405, September 16-18. Discover one-of-a-kind geometric abstract collage art.

A reflection on Hidden Depth, my May 2019 solo exhibition at Bryant Street Gallery in Palo Alto, and what geometric abstraction, constraint, and sustained looking meant to my practice at the time.

How studying Josef Albers' color theory, twice and in two different academic contexts, permanently changed the way I see, build, and teach color.

How mountain paintings and meditation practice help create art that brings calm to your space. Discover the inspiration behind Shilo Ratner's geometric mountain landscapes and full moon paintings.

Shilo Ratner's geometric abstract paintings featured in "Party of 10: Celebrating Women Artists," curated by Amy Zoller at George Billis Gallery in Fairfield, Connecticut. Opening reception November 19, 2023, 3-6 PM.

A room full of Bonnard paintings at Centre Pompidou, an afternoon of looking, and a shift in understanding that never fully settled. This is how Paris changed the way I think about color — not as surface, but as structure.

Shilo Ratner's newest geometric abstract paintings will be featured at the Seattle Art Fair 2024 with +GalleryLABS, July 25-28 at Lumen Field Event Center. Discover bold mountain paintings and abstract landscapes from this contemporary artist.

Shilo Ratner's geometric abstract paintings will be featured at the Affordable Art Fair Stockholm in October 2025 with +GalleryLABS. Discover original contemporary art from this Connecticut artist at Nacka Strandsmässan.

Vista is a 30x30 original geometric mountain painting by Shilo Ratner. Inspired by mountain hiking and the quiet strength of open terrain, it brings earthy calm to modern interiors.

Discover how to commission a custom original painting by Shilo Ratner. Tailor-made geometric abstract art created specifically for your space, colors, and vision.

Meeting Fields didn't feel like encountering a distant figure from art history. It felt grounded, human. He wasn't performing the role of "artist." He was simply someone who had spent a lifetime looking, really looking, at color, and following it as far as it could go.