Absorption by James Edward Scherbarth

A great pale shape leans over a small red one. Something is being decided.

Absorption is a 2018 painting by James Edward Scherbarth, in oil and cold wax medium on cradle board. Abstract works of this kind offer no story, only shape and surface, and are meant to reward long looking in a home or gallery. Cold wax painters often scratch into the surface, leaving a record of each pass. Those marks show plainly here, as fine scratches across a dark brown ground. A large form in dusty rose, edged at the top with a thin white line, hangs above a smaller disc of hot red. The two nearly touch. Thirty-six inches square.

Which one is absorbing which is left to you. Take your time.