Jac Leirner Untitled, 2016

The composition juxtaposes two distinct hues—an ashy coffee brown and a radiant peach orange. Along the upper edge, a small, almond-brown rectangle is nestled in-between them, introducing a subtle yet deliberate interruption.

During her studies, Leirner explored color through a series of watercolors informed by Bauhaus instructor Johannes Itten’s seminal color theory. Drawing on the teachings of Itten as well as the studies of color of the early twentieth-century painters Josef Albers and Paul Klee, she builds each composition through carefully layered washes of luminous pigment—a process that requires patience, precision, and a finely trained sense of color. Leirner often remarks, “I have the head of a painter,” a sensibility we continue to find in her later watercolors.