
Black and Orange Mixed Media Expressionist Abstract by Shirley Bleviss
Upon first seeing this mixed media piece by Shirley Bleviss, its layered forms, colors, and textures pull us to the heart of abstraction’s mysteries. Her work, composed primarily of black anthracite shades and vibrant orange hues, unfolds through layered surfaces that evoke materials in transformation. Seemingly worn and peeling, fragments of paper or canvas reveal layers beneath, suggesting the aftermath of a burn. The geometry here displays what one might call “wobbly geometry.” Shapes appear less as strict forms and more as intuitive echoes, spectral traces, dissolving and reconfiguring across the pictorial space. Bleviss’s approach to color is controlled. The orange pulses against the subdued blacks, forming an understated but potent dialogue between warmth and shadow. This play of color hints at the hidden energies within the work, suggesting an allegorical world that we sense instinctively without needing explicit symbols. Here, abstraction serves not as a vehicle for representat