What a work on paper is for

Until this month everything in the catalogue was on canvas. The four works on paper from 2018, No. 055 to No. 058, are the first exception. They're 16 x 12 inches, acrylic on paper, and I made them on the kitchen table that spring to try things out before going up to the roof with a big canvas. White over white with yellow dragged through it. Black and yellow. Black splatter on its own. Red, blue, yellow and black thrown together. Each one is the idea for something bigger.

What you're buying

An original, one of one, signed, with the same certificate and catalogue number as the big work. Not a print — there are no prints of anything here, and this is how you tell the difference. It ships unframed, insured, within five business days, and at $450 it's the least expensive way to own a piece of this.

How to frame it

Any framer will do it in a week. Ask for a simple frame, a mat so the paper doesn't touch the glass, and glass or acrylic with UV protection, because paper and acrylic paint both prefer to stay out of direct sun. Ask for a quote first; a plain frame is cheap and a good one isn't. Hang it where you'll see it close up — a hallway, a desk, the wall by the bed — because a 16 x 12 is made to be looked at from three feet, not thirty.

Why I kept them

For eight years I thought of these as notes. Looking at them now, they're the clearest record of what I was trying to do that year, before the size and the roof and the wind got involved. If you like the big work and want to start smaller, start here. And if you own one of the 2018 canvases, the study for it might be one of these four.

About the author. Charles Black is a self-taught painter working in acrylic on canvas from a two-room studio at the back of a warehouse in Queens, New York, and the founder of ABB Collective. He has been posting the work as @abstractbyblack since 2022 and has placed paintings in bars, offices and private homes around New York. Questions about anything here: charles.s.black@gmail.com.