At the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York color indeed “spills” from the canvases in the exhibition “Spilling Over: Painting Colors in the 1960s.” The austere white walls of the gallery spaces on the 8th floor in the museum amplify bold, saturated colors from Color Field painters like Mark Rothko to geometric arrangements of intense color combinations from artists like Miriam Shapiro and Kenneth Noland. Artists of this generation explored color and the capacity to articulate it on the canvas employing a variety of methods from pouring, staining, adopting a newly available, plastic-based medium, acrylic paint.
The colors, the monumental size of many of the canvases overfills my view, my body as I step into the space between myself and a painting–swallowed whole by color; the hues of blues, reds, yellows, oranges ignite my spirit.
Frank Stella, “Gran Cairo” 
Emma Amos, “Baby” 
Bob Thompson, “Triumph of Bacchus” 
Miriam Shapiro, “Jigsaw”
Artist Bob Thompson, whose work is also presented. inspired the title of the exhibition through his quote: “I paint many paintings that tell me slowly that I have something inside of me that is just bursting, twisting, sticking, spilling over to get out. Out into souls and mouths and eyes that have never seen before.” How delicious that all of what he describes can be expressed, without verbage, through color! Run and see this engaging exhibition, up until August, 2019. Visit The Whitney Museum to learn more http://whitney.org I included a couple of my favorite pieces in this post to whet your appetite. 🙂 Image credits: @thewhitneymuseum