Kenneth Martin led a revival in England of pre-war Constructivism, which endeavored to convey dynamic movement through pure geometric form. Martin first achieved notoriety in the 1950s by building mobiles informed by Russian Constructivist Aleksandr Rodchenko and American sculptor Alexander Calder. The geometry and kinetics of mobiles continue to play a role in this screenprint (as well as in his other paintings and prints from the 1960s onward). A series of orange, magenta, blue, and green bars seem to rotate around a loosely defined axis. While there are no tonal shifts to suggest volumetric forms, the use of overlapping and changes in color temperature evoke a sense of depth, as if the bars are rotating in three dimensions around a central point. At the bottom of the work, a pink bar establishes a firm ground line and stabilizes the otherwise wildly gyrating composition.
–When We Were Young: Rethinking Abstraction From The University At Albany Art Collections (1967-Present)