Hibou-Circus I

Jean-Paul Riopelle's "Hibou-Circus" (mid-1950s) is a monumental triptych and a dynamic burst of color that exemplifies the Canadian artist's style of Lyrical Abstraction. This painting, composed of three distinct but unified panels, is an abstract landscape of pure energy. Riopelle built the canvas surface with thick, sculptural layers of impasto paint, often applied with a palette knife to create a dense, fragmented mosaic of intense colors. Using the triptych format amplifies the sensation of immersion and vast lateral movement.