This work is from the Halftone Paintings series, which are made with a specialized printing surface that leaves a matrix of tiny dots in pattern similar to a photographic halftone.
Halftone is the method used in commercial printing to translate the continuous tone of photographic emulsion to a field of minute dots of varying size.
The Halftone Paintings somewhat resemble fragmentary enlargements of this kind of image.
This painting has a particularly luminous, green ground, which Maine achieved with several thin layers of sprayed glaze.
The two scrim-like layers of dots—purple-gray and deep orange—blend optically in a way that reminds Maine of Georges Seurat’s pointillism
Stephen Maine is an American abstract painter, writer, curator and teacher. He is a member of the American Abstract Artists and a contributing editor at Artcritical.com. His paintings engage and extend contemporary ideas about color, composition, surface and process.
He lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.