This thickly layered, textural painting is part of James Little’s White series, in which he overlays glossy, white oil paint atop swirling fields of layered rainbow colors. Brush marks are evident throughout the work, as are tiny imperfections in the circles. These echoes of accidents and accentuated marks of the human touch are essential to the underlying humanity of Little’s aesthetic position. The circular elements in this series makes Little’s White paintings unique within his oeuvre, which has been defined by hard-edge, geometric abstract compositions grounded in linear color relationships.

Little has spoken out about the abstract nature of his position, insisting there is no social or political content in the work. However, he frequently employs suggestive text in the titles of his work. He tends not to elaborate on what the text means to him, or speculate on what it might mean to a viewer. He draws a stark line between the subject matter that he is thinking about while he works, and the content that ends up being in the painting. It is, however, hard not to note that in the case of his White paintings, we are gazing at a vibrant world of color through a thickly veiled mesh of whiteness.