Without turning her back completely on the spontaneous method of her early career in Abstract Expressionism, Shirley Jaffe opted for the geometric abstraction based on dislocation and movement that would henceforth define her work, in which she skilfully amalgamates representational signs. A heterogeneous cross between children’s stickers, Chinese ideograms and Moorish frescoes, her improbable forms relate to no known reality, while yellow, red, blue, black, green are the leitmotifs for an oeuvre obsessed with colour. Based on a perfect command of rhythm, her chromatic improvisations of colours on a white background recall Matisse’s cut-outs or jazzy variations in Stuart Davis style.
