Untitled, 1977
Milan Mrkusich’s chromatic suites, such as this work, exemplify the development of his work into a classic formalist style. During the 1960s Mrkusich investigated universal symbols in his Emblem and Element paintings, influenced by artists like Wassily Kandinsky and the studies of Carl G. Jung. But as the decade drew to a close Mrkusich began to experiment with a visual simplicity and geometry that referenced the American colourfield painters such as Barnett Newman and Ad Reinhardt.
Mrkusich’s adoption of a simplified and more mathematical approach reduced his surfaces to finely rendered lines that intersect to create squares, rectangles and triangles. The formal elements of the picture plane reference nothing that exists outside of the painting itself. It is not a representation of an object; instead it is the relationship between the formal elements of the painted surface that create the subject of the work. Mrkusich investigated the abundant possibilities of these lines, with only slight variations between each study. These variants ranged from a change of colour; or a lack thereof as in the achromatic suites; to being as simple as the addition or removal of one line.
In this work Mrkusich includes a common feature of these formalist studies, a grid of four squares at the base. Other painted aspects of the work interact with each other and the paper itself. The green line on the right side of the painting begins at precisely 450 mm up the picture plane, which would be the exact point to make a square from the base of the work. This green line also runs parallel with one red line whilst the other red line, if it were extended, would intersect at right angles with the green line, thus marking the centre of the large square that Mrkusich has invisibly mapped out.
Closer inspection reveals a background with a three-dimensional quality, a subtle divergence from the linear elements of the composition. The geometric grid hovers over an intricately stippled surface of blue. From afar the eye reads the surface as a field of one colour but closer up this field becomes a space of delicately rendered shifts in tone. Mrkusich skilfully marries all of these elements to create a composition of understated elegance and visual harmony.