Flutter 36" x 36"

See more art from the 2025 New Works

James Nowak’s Flutter (2025) situates itself within the continuing dialogue between geometric order and painterly spontaneity. Emerging from his New Works series, the painting resists categorization as either purely abstract expressionism or formalist geometry; rather, it thrives in the tension between the two. The title Flutter hints at impermanence and movement, qualities that Nowak conjures through the interplay of bold brushstrokes and rigid compositional anchors.

At first glance, the work appears divided between rectilinear structure and gestural improvisation. The vertical red band on the left and the stacked orange, blue, and teal rectangles establish a sense of stability, grounding the canvas in architectural precision. These planes echo the vocabulary of constructivism and color-field painting.

Cutting across this grid, however, are sweeping strokes of black and blue paint, applied with expressive energy. Their arcs and diagonals slice through the order of the rectangles, suggesting turbulence or flight. Smaller ochre marks punctuate the surface like bursts of light, adding rhythm and syncopation. Together, these forms destabilize the underlying geometry, preventing the composition from settling into calm symmetry.

The title Flutter becomes most legible in the gestural elements. The black sweeps—curving, bending, almost calligraphic—mimic the movement of wings or the erratic patterns of leaves in the wind. The blue brushstrokes, often layered over black, heighten the sensation of doubling or shadowing, as if the forms are vibrating in space. Meanwhile, the orange dabs function like flickers or interruptions, underscoring the fleeting quality of the moment.

This dynamic is not chaotic, however. Instead, the gestures are calibrated to work in dialogue with the grid: the fluttering movement requires a stable backdrop to be perceptible. Nowak carefully balances disruption with containment, freedom with discipline.

Color plays a crucial role in modulating the painting’s emotional resonance. The primary palette of red, blue, and orange is bold and striking, evoking vitality and immediacy. The teal band introduces a cooler, grounding note, while the neutral white background amplifies the saturation of the painted marks.

The contrast between the static, solid blocks of color and the ephemeral, gestural strokes can be read as a metaphor for the dualities of lived experience: permanence and transience, structure and spontaneity, intention and accident. The title Flutter thus takes on existential overtones—life as a balance between what endures and what flickers briefly before vanishing.

Nowak’s work resonates with traditions of abstract expressionism, particularly in the gestural immediacy reminiscent of Franz Kline’s black strokes or Joan Mitchell’s dynamic compositions. At the same time, the geometric framing evokes post-painterly abstraction and the hard-edge painting of Ellsworth Kelly or Carmen Herrera.

This dual allegiance positions Flutter within a contemporary mode of abstraction that refuses purity. Rather than championing gesture over geometry or vice versa, Nowak shows how the two can coexist—how lived experience is both structured and unpredictable, both ordered and fluttering.

In Flutter, James Nowak delivers a meditation on movement, impermanence, and balance. The work’s tension between the architectural and the ephemeral embodies its title, evoking the fragility of a butterfly’s wings or the unstable rhythm of a heartbeat. Far from static abstraction, Flutter is a painting in motion, a choreography of order and chaos.

By uniting the precision of the rectangle with the freedom of the brushstroke, Nowak affirms abstraction’s continuing vitality in the 21st century. His work reminds us that even in an age of digital precision and algorithmic systems, the human impulse to gesture—to flutter—is what keeps art alive.