Willis has used interlocking bars since the seventies, and amongst his cast of squares, rectangles, zigs, and zags, these long bars of color that float, and sometimes intersect, have been his means of creating a sense of illusory space. But in a painting such as homage to the first generation (2021), it is the singular form of a tall yellow vertical intersected two-thirds of the way up its length by a heavy blue horizontal which takes prominence against a robin’s egg blue background.
Founded in 1962 as Balboa Pavilion Gallery, the Orange County Museum of Art now finds itself starting a new chapter with a new building and five inaugural exhibitions on deck. Here's the lowdown on the celebratory events.