There is an immediate sense of motion and energy at play in contemporary artist Shuk Ora-
ni’s Limitless_NE (2017). The large scale (1500 x 2000 mm) painting in oil is crafted with two seemingly competing elements that work in unison to form a marriage between compositional formality and gestural improvisation. The foundation of the work is a flat plane of geometric elements. Vertical and horizontal lines traverse the whole plane in subtle blue, white, and earthy brown tones. The frequent intersections make this an image of right-angles and suggest a touch of cubism. Over this foundation, the artist interjects with a counterpoint. The right half of the image is dominated by a series of bold gestural swirls. These kinetic moments both exceed the frame like lines within the work and are contained by them in a perfectly balanced invocation of painterly energy. The scale of the painting amplifies the visceral sense of the painter at work but is tamed by the careful organisation underpinning the composition.