This exhibition looks back 26 years to the introduction of the artist's series of diptychs titled Twelve Colour Pair.  The title comes from the fact that there were only twelve pairs of paintings made. Unfortunately, one pair was destroyed in the making of them (according to the artist) and one pair has gone missing during the ensuing 25 years leaving behind only ten pair. This exhibition brings together four of the remaining ten. 

The artist painted sheets of paper particular colours that were not his earlier, usual palette of primary colours plus black, a palette that had served him well for more than a decade, but this new palette, used also for the previous two series, was heavier and more complex; perhaps a reflection of the artist's inner subconscious state. A darker and more serious period clouded the artist's personal life and career at this time, and this would be the last series of works he created and exhibited before becoming a recluse for the next 13 years.   

The sheets of paper were die-cut into small rectangles which he then arranged into sets of four stripes butted together; creating a square of colours complimenting and contrasting each other, undulating in tonality. He would then make a corresponding square of four stripes with different colours, equaling in visual weight to the first; sometimes in a direct relationship to the first set, while in other pairs, as a mirror image in tonality.  The artist often set parameters to the development of work, like a game, and like games, they had rules to follow and to help understand them.

Poldaas had a keen interest in utilizing Edwin Land's theories of colour when producing work and talked often about how the mind's eye would pick out colours in a particular order. He was specific about the mathematical composition of the colours and often measured them carefully in syringes to achieve the correct ratios of pigment from one to the next. The relationship between colours was, for him, more of an intellectual pursuit than an emotional one. This conceptual approach to painting is what sets him apart from other abstract painters.