Green Veils over Blue is a dense fall of acid green and yellow-green strands descending through a field punctuated by passages of deep cobalt blue and sharp red-orange, the whole surface vibrating with a chromatic intensity that reads almost as sound. The central axis is the brightest, warmest band, and the green deepens and cools toward the edges, but the characteristic central-axis luminosity is nearly overwhelmed by the energy of the whole field.
Green Veils over Blue is a dense fall of acid green and yellow-green strands descending through a field punctuated by passages of deep cobalt blue and sharp red-orange, the whole surface vibrating with a chromatic intensity that reads almost as sound. The central axis is the brightest, warmest band, and the green deepens and cools toward the edges, but the characteristic central-axis luminosity is nearly overwhelmed by the energy of the whole field.
Thompson builds these surfaces through controlled pouring and her subtractive process, removing paint until the strands achieve precise density. What gives Green Veils over Blue its electricity is temperature: the acid yellows and greens are warm, while the cobalt of the underpainting competes actively for dominance. Helen Frankenthaler’s atmospheric stain paintings achieved a related sense of color-as-environment, though Frankenthaler’s surfaces absorb into the canvas where Thompson’s accumulate above it, retaining physical presence.
The red-orange flecks through the mid-canvas veil have the quality of heat made visible, intensifying the green rather than contrasting with it. In Vipassana meditative Buddhist practice, the body is experienced as a field of vibrating, impermanent particles, and Thompson has described painting as the enactment of that perception. Green Veils over Blue is among the most literal realizations of that claim, the surface approaching pure chromatic event.
