When Andrew Lyght encountered The Wild in an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, he was immediately struck by its dimensions. For Lyght, who had worked in construction, Newman’s painting resembled the wooden studs employed to frame a house.
Lyght’s work often draws on architecture’s formal and material vocabularies. In works like this one, the plywood frame is equally structural and aesthetic. The diamond plaque in the center of the composition is snugly wedged among the bands of wood as if it were a kite about to blow away. The airy geometric abstractions that adorn this plaque echo the timehri, ancient rock paintings and drawings found in Guyana, where the artist was born.