The Great Disaster I

Kenneth William Auvil

By the 1980s Kenneth William Auvil had steered away from Modernist abstracted landscapes into highly detailed works that verged on the Surreal. A pioneering serigrapher living in San Jose, he followed in the footsteps of other noted California artists Guy Maccoy and Millard Sheets, aiming to uplift the serigraph (stencil) medium as a fine art, pulling it out of its relegation to commercial work. It remained his primary artistic form for the duration of his career.

In "The Great Disaster II" is from the later half of his career and shows the influence of Pop and Op art sensibilities, as well as the artist's interest in Surrealism. Two "boxes" contain the elements of air and earth. Intentional patterns in the sky create the illusion of circular movement, contrasting against the chaos of the grass seen in the lower box, rendered close-up and featuring a dash of bright red.

Superimposed on the cool greens and blues of the background is a bright yellow plane that appears to be plummeting into the chaotic earth; however, the entire composition is somehow still serene, peaceful, belying the title of the work.