Hibou-Circus III (rotated)

Paint sits heavy on this canvas, built up in thick ridges and blocks that catch the light like broken ice. Jean-Paul Riopelle, a Quebec-born painter, made this kind of surface his signature. Rather than brushing color on, he loaded a palette knife and pressed the paint straight onto the canvas, leaving a rough terrain of grays, blacks, and slashes of red, green, and white. The effect is busy and jittery, more like a storm than a still scene.

Riopelle came up alongside other artists who chased abstraction in the years after World War II, and he went on to become one of Canada's best-known painters. The word "Hibou" means owl in French, a nod to his lifelong love of birds and the untamed nature of his homeland. Do not expect to find a tidy owl staring back at you though. The shapes stay tangled and open, leaving room for your own eye to sort out patterns in the swirl of color and grit.