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Tall Building, 36" x 48"

Tall Building, 36" x 48"

See more paintings from the Floating Color Collection.

James Nowak’s Tall Building, part of his Floating Color Collection, draws on the language of geometric abstraction to evoke architectural associations. Through the interplay of vertical and horizontal bars, punctuated by solid blocks of color, the composition suggests the skeletal outline of a skyscraper rising within an abstracted, borderless space. While rooted in abstraction, the painting resonates with themes of modernity, structure, and the balance between order and openness.

At the heart of the painting is its vertical orientation, embodied by two strong columns: a dark blue bar on the left and a bright cyan bar on the right. These verticals immediately suggest the architectural metaphor of the title—structural supports that could belong to a tall building. Crossing them, a yellow horizontal bar extends across the canvas like a structural beam, linking the verticals into a framework.

Below, a red bar adds visual weight, while the black square in the lower left corner grounds the composition, functioning almost like a foundation stone. Above, a green square hovers slightly detached, suggesting either a floating element of ornamentation or a window suspended in the sky.

This structural interplay of verticals, horizontals, and squares creates a rhythm akin to architectural scaffolding, yet deliberately simplified into the most essential geometric language.

The palette is bold and primary, with sharp contrasts that intensify the architectural metaphor:

  • Blue and cyan verticals create the sense of solidity, acting as supporting columns.
  • Yellow functions as an expansive connector, adding brightness and movement across the canvas.
  • Red provides grounding energy and stabilizes the lower half.
  • Green injects vitality and surprise, balancing the dominance of the linear framework.
  • Black brings gravity, offering an anchor of seriousness against the vibrant tones.

Nowak’s use of pure, unmodulated hues enhances the clarity of form, while the white background allows the shapes to “float,” preventing the composition from collapsing into literal architectural representation.

As in other works from the Floating Color Collection, the forms here do not sit on a ground but hover within an undefined space. Despite the architectural suggestion, the “building” is not fixed but suspended, weightless. This creates a paradox: the solidity of architecture rendered as something ephemeral and buoyant.

The white background becomes an active force, both supporting and destabilizing the structure. Instead of solidity, the viewer encounters fragility—an image of a skyscraper that could dissolve at any moment into pure abstraction.

Tall Building is both celebratory and contemplative. Its bright, vibrant colors reflect the optimism of modernity, the joy of construction, and the allure of vertical growth. Yet the floating, non-anchored forms also suggest impermanence—modern structures may be monumental, but within abstraction they remain provisional, fragile arrangements of color and line.

Symbolically, the painting can be read as a meditation on the duality of progress: architecture as both an emblem of human achievement and a structure vulnerable to time, perception, and change.

Nowak’s composition echoes the geometric rigor of Piet Mondrian, particularly in works like Composition with Yellow, Blue, and Red, where horizontals and verticals interact in abstract balance. Yet Nowak diverges from Mondrian’s strict grid by allowing asymmetry and floating forms, introducing movement and improvisation.

The architectural metaphor aligns his work with Constructivism, where art and architecture merged in pursuit of modern ideals. However, unlike Constructivist projects that sought utility, Nowak’s Tall Building strips away function, leaving only a poetic meditation on structure, color, and suspension.

James Nowak’s Tall Building transforms geometry into metaphor. By orchestrating bold verticals and horizontals into a loose architectural framework, he evokes the solidity of skyscrapers while simultaneously dissolving them into floating abstraction. The work embodies the central paradox of the Floating Color Collection: structure within weightlessness, clarity within openness. In Tall Building, architecture becomes not a material object but a vision—an emblem of human striving, reframed as color and form suspended in space.

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