Untitled 2

A field of squares fills this canvas, each one holding a single flat color. Warm yellows and creamy tones dominate the surface, spreading a soft glow from edge to edge. Then come the interruptions: a pop of pink here, a patch of deep blue there, cool teal squares scattered like stepping stones across the warmth. The gray blocks gathered on the left side add a heavier, quieter note. The overall feeling lands somewhere between an ancient tiled floor and the pixels of a screen, with no corner asking for more attention than any other.

Hedi Mertens was a Swiss painter who found abstraction late in life, and she poured that energy into patient studies of color and geometry. Her paintings belong to Concrete Art, a movement built on a simple idea: a painting does not need to show anything from the real world. The shapes and colors are the subject, complete on their own. Made in 2000, this work shows her at ease with that thinking, using plain squares as building blocks to balance heat and coolness across one steady, even rhythm.