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.
Among the last of the Halftone Paintings, this work plays a rather sparse, blotchy application of neutralized blue-gray against a highly saturated (chromatically intense), brushed-on ground in greenish yellow.
In the presence of all that greenish yellow, the blue tint leans toward lavender. The painting could really be a tribute to Josef Albers, whose Interaction of Color (1963, 1971) is a landmark for painters of Maine's generation and earlier.
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.