North Carolina Museum of Art

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HIGHLIGHTS

20th Century Collection

1950–2000

Ed Moses (American, born 1926)

Blk-Jack, 1995
Acrylic on canvas, (overall size) 78 x 126 5/16 in. (198.1 x 320.8 cm.)
Purchased with funds from Thelma D. Petrie, 1996
© Ed Moses, Courtesy of L.A. Lover Gallery, Venice, NY
Ed Moses enjoys a reputation as one of the most forceful and consistently challenging abstract painters of his generation. Blk-Jack is a wondrous and enigmatic painting. It is impossible not to see the image in cosmic terms. Divided into two, slightly unequal canvases, the painting presents a spiritual duality of light and dark, day and night. A magenta slash separates the realms. Within each nebulous space float circles or spheres; those in the light radiate vitalityóauras literally surround them. They suggest a constellation of stars or pinpoints of blinding color haloed with a retinal afterimage. In contrast, the spheres on the right side hover in the black void as dark stars or relics of spent energy. The title, perhaps derived from the card game, offers little insight into the artist's intention. Moses' titles are often wittily arbitrary.