The various decorative and gestural motifs of his previous paintings always played against a monochrome surface.

Damage or dirt will show up as dark spots or lines in a photo of any monochrome surface.

Even monochrome surfaces seem to hold subliminal graphic images: a sprinkling of silver dots on the inside of a conical bowl looks like a constellation-filled night sky.

Basically Mr. Marden was making visible, through line, the gestures by which he had previously layered his paint onto his monochrome surfaces.

Their monochrome surfaces are intensified by being textured.

From 1958 he purified his paintings by creating matte, monochrome surfaces, thus focusing the viewer's attention on the slices that rend the skin of the canvas.

Their distorted circles and unfinished squares on monochrome surfaces have a Renaissance-like logic and elegance, even while they wreak havoc with geometry.

They can sit on closed monochrome surfaces or appear to be swamped in fluid washes of color.

The monochrome surfaces are sanded and polished many times to such a degree of reflectiveness that they seem translucent.

Andrew Kennedy paints sensuous monochrome surfaces on funky, absurdly thick supports.