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Notes

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Wells painted many images that suggest aerial perspective. As in this painting, interlocking shapes recede toward an elevated horizon creating a bird's eye view of a constructed scene. This approach allowed Wells to merge abstraction and landscape.

Flight had been a key theme for Wells since the late 1940s and many of his images are based upon the flight patterns of seabirds or planes. Wells' fascination with flight sprang principally from a Constructivist interest in space. Wells' post-war association with Peter Lanyon was instrumental in the increased presence of landscape in his work, but by 1960 he had abandoned representation and returned to geometric abstraction.