You'll Love Pastel Colors in These Artworks!
In a work of art, the choice of the color palette impacts the composition in a powerful way. Artists often use a limited color palette to achieve greater balance and easy color harmonies through the work, placing the focus on the tone and composition.
We have brought together ten works from modern and contemporary art which are characterized by the soft but effective color palette. If you are a fan of pastel colors, be sure to explore these works for your collection!
Featured image: Henry Moore – Two Women Seated (detail), 1967. All images courtesy their respective galleries.
In the art of the French street artist L’Atlas, the main aspect is the exploration of calligraphy and geometry. His work is all about lines and forms, combining a range of influences, from Ancient Greek and Arabic calligraphy to modern tags. His moniker is the main subject of his work, serving as a vehicle for the renewal of his approach to the expression of the letter and line.
In this particular work created in 2017, his moniker is rendered in pastel beige tones, evoking cardboard.
Find more info about the work here.
A German artist, Julia Benz is best known for combining contemporary painting and urban art in a very specific way, by using a highly colored palette and overlapping layers. She has a deep trust in the process that characterizes her work, which is evident in her compositions which all lack pre-conceptions.
Execute in a soft color palette, the work CONFETTI from 2017 is not limited by any formal or informal constraints. It is about openness, intensity and passion.
An Australian multidisciplinary artist, Mik Shida creates psychedelic entities guided by explorations of the relationship between ritual, sexuality and love. He describes his practice as shamanistic, channeling the spirits which seem entwined in a ceremonial act while transcending the bounds of known reality.
His freestyle painting engages with issues of sexuality and attraction between human bodies. So is the case with the piece In Exult created in 2018.
Coming from Chicago, The Lie mixes traditional painting techniques with spray paint, manifesting a unique style that crosses contemporary and street art. A co-owner of Chicago suburb Arlington Height’s Paper Crown Gallery, he is a fine artist turned street art aficionado.
Created in 2018, the work Farewell is characterized by the expressionist line and a soft color palette.
In his works, Lino Lago juxtaposes intentionally banal imagery with jarring, unexpected abstract expressions – sometimes dramatic explosions of color. Painting carefully rendered, realistic images he adds visually intrusive layers of color, exploring the way we look and think about art and beauty.
This work is part of the series Fake Abstract which features realistic classical portraits of women that are partly covered with blocks of red, pink or blue paint. The details of the figure beneath the color are revealed through a thin squiggle, appearing as if a finger dragged across a foggy window.
A French artist living in Berlin, Jaybo Monk explores the world and draws an emotional topography of his life. His work consists of half-hidden visual fragments of memory that are revealing and timeless at the same time. He employs hypnotic imagery that often comes directly from his own dreams, resulting in irrational and at times psychedelic works.
A French contemporary photographer, Matthieu Venot turns architectural details of his hometown of Brest in Brittany into cleanly composed minimalist images that stand out from a deep blue sky. Playing with glazing façades, windows, banisters, balconies, and similar elements of the urban environment, he turns them into universal images that could be found in any place in the world.
This work is part of the Ground Loop series, which photographer described as “more down to earth.” Very graphic and characterized by soft color palette, it focuses on stairs, railings and various architectural elements found more towards the ground.
An American abstract artist, Audrey Stone explores the differences between texture and the materials as well as the tension between genders in the society. Using ink, graphite, and thread, she creates works of subtle and bold aesthetics which captivate with their simplicity.
The work The Bridge, The Borders from 2013 is a sewn painting where the two different and separate painted areas are joined by the thread sewn between them. The piece is delineated with a colorful border running around the painted areas and the lower section of the work.
Chinese-born and Marseille-based, Feng Ge aims at creating a pictorial synthesis between East and West, as he understands the differences and similarities in these two cultures and art traditions. Ge’s artistic experience can reflect the style of the studying artists of his generation, especially the confusion and struggle of this culture.
In a series of works titled Mains, the artist explored the pictorial possibilities of hands.
One of the seminal 20th-century sculptors, Henry Moore is best known for his semi-abstract monumental bronze sculptures located all around the world as public works of art. Being fascinated with landscape and nature, he drew analogies between the human body and the landscape through the use of abstract forms. Throughout his career, the artist has also produced a significant body of work of lithographs.
Created in 1967, the lithographs Two Women Seated is part of the Shelter-Sketch-Book portfolio, assembled by the artist based on his original sketchbook in pen, ink, crayon, and watercolor made during WWII while he held the salaried position of Official War Artist.
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