Brightly colored concentric circles have been a signature mark of the artist across his prolific 45-year career, during which he’s remained a fixture in the L.A. art scene. The color and compositions of Suggs’ work derives from “pictorial analysis,” as he puts it. “Either representations of landscape or reproductions of paintings generally recognized as ‘canonical.’” Suggs’ “Paradise Prints” notably feature this geometric style. With intense circular overlays atop black and white landscapes, the prints form incongruous images, but the stark contrast of the overlays is what informs each piece.“Sometimes the palette gives us back the native colors of the scene,” he adds. “The color compositions may have been chosen to function symbolically, imparting suggestions of things hidden but implied in the photo. The thing that blocks our view is an opening in the picture to further meaning.”
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To see more works by Suggs, check out images from his 2012 L.A. Louver exhibition Don Suggs: Thermal Pools and Paradise Prints.