Infraction IV

Between 1969 and 1974, Virginia Jaramillo created a series known as the Curvilinear Paintings. Infraction IV is one of the earliest paintings in this body of work and is typical of the initial Curvilin- ear abstractions in its inclusion of large, rounded forms in what might be construed as the foreground. The artist embarked on the series after a residency in Paris in 1965, which, as she recalls, “zipped open my brain.” Jaramillo’s experiences in Europe solidi- fied her interest in the Japanese concept of ma (literally, “gap” or “pause”), in which empty space is considered as important as occupied space. The artist generated the resulting paintings through an extensive process involving dozens of sketches of a single line on paper measuring eight by ten inches. She would then select one drawing to transpose onto canvas. In most of these large-scale works, a single curved line extends across a monochro- matic field from one edge of the canvas to another. “Sometimes, it would take weeks just to get that line the way I wanted,” the artist later commented. “It had to be right—it had to flow like a strand
of hair.” Infraction IV was shown in public for the first time in 2020 in Virginia Jaramillo: The Curvilinear Paintings, 1969–1974 at the Menil Collection in Houston, the first solo museum show of the artist’s career.