Jitterbug, 48" x 60"

James Nowak’s Jitterbug is a dazzling display of rhythm, color, and movement within the Vibrant Color Collection. Its title invokes the energetic swing dance of the early 20th century, suggesting quick steps, improvisation, and playful exuberance. The painting reflects these qualities in visual form, translating music and motion into a kaleidoscope of layered brushstrokes. It is not merely an abstraction but an embodiment of rhythm—an invitation to experience joy as movement captured on canvas.

The painting’s palette is bright and varied: brilliant yellows, fiery reds, deep blues, vivid greens, and softer lavenders intermingle. These colors do not settle into hierarchy; instead, they jostle and leap across the surface, each vying for presence in the dance.

Yellows dominate as sparks of light, while reds and blues form the structural rhythm, grounding the piece in intensity and depth. Turquoise and lavender weave through, softening transitions, offering pauses in the otherwise frenetic choreography. The palette achieves balance not through calm harmony but through the vitality of competition—like dancers improvising in sync yet always striving to outshine each other.

The brushwork is quick, layered, and multidirectional. Short, sharp strokes act like syncopated beats, while longer, sweeping marks provide fluidity, echoing the swing and spin of dancers on a floor. Unlike the broad gestural arcs in Deep Blue or the fiery bursts of Colorful Explosion, here the strokes feel more rapid, more staccato, mimicking the quick steps of jitterbug.

This kinetic energy turns the canvas into a kind of visual jazz—structured yet improvisational, rhythmic yet unpredictable. The eye cannot rest in one place for long; it is constantly carried from one burst of color to another, caught in the tempo of the painting.

The emotional register of Jitterbug is pure exhilaration. Unlike the depth of Burnt Sienna or the turbulence of Thunder Storm, this painting revels in joy as uncontainable play. It embodies the kind of happiness found in dance, in music, in spontaneous expression.

There is also a sense of community embedded here: jitterbug, as a social dance, thrives in connection. The overlapping strokes and colors can be read as partners in motion, colliding and complementing, weaving together in dynamic relationships. Joy here is not solitary but shared—an experience of togetherness and rhythm.

Within the Vibrant Color Collection, Jitterbug highlights joy in its most playful and musical form. If Colorful Explosion represents the sheer intensity of vibrancy, and Deep Blue meditates on depth and atmosphere, Jitterbug captures the ecstatic rhythm of life. It situates joy as movement, reminding us that vibrancy is not only about color’s intensity but also about its rhythm and tempo.

The piece underscores Nowak’s capacity to translate abstract concepts—here, dance and music—into purely visual experiences, proving that vibrancy is not only seen but also felt, embodied, and performed.

James Nowak’s Jitterbug is a jubilant fusion of color and rhythm, a painting that dances with energy. Through its bright palette, rapid brushwork, and dynamic composition, it transforms abstraction into choreography, embodying the spirit of swing dance and the improvisational joy of jazz.

As part of the Vibrant Color Collection, it reminds us that joy is not only found in balance or depth but also in movement, rhythm, and play. Jitterbug stands as a celebration of vitality in its most musical, communal, and exuberant form.