Abandoned by James Edward Scherbarth

A field of red, a slab of pale ground, and scrawl where the two collide.

ABANDONED is an oil and cold wax painting on cradle board by James Edward Scherbarth (1949-2021), dated 2019, signed and titled en verso. Cold wax gives oil paint a dense, workable body, which is why abstract painters use it to carve and scratch into a surface as they go. A maroon band with horizontal scoring crosses the top. Below it, a bright red plane meets a pale stone-colored mass at left, and the pale color breaks down into looping scratched lines. Thirty inches on each side.

Whatever was left here, it was not left quietly.