Collage on Paper - Ode by James Edward Scherbarth

Four red bars stand side by side over a tangle of looping gray, like a fence with something busy going on behind it.

Ode is a collage on paper, mixed media, by James Edward Scherbarth, dated 2020 and signed and dated 08-24-2020 on the verso. An ode is traditionally a poem of praise, often elaborate and formal, and here the title sits against a deliberately simple arrangement. Four vertical strips of vivid red paper are laid in a row near the center. Across and beneath them, loose horizontal loops of graphite wander back and forth. Below, a set of white strips is crossed with tangled lines and tipped in gray, sitting above a faint ruled grid. It is 7 inches wide and 10 high.

Praise, delivered in red and kept brief.