Rejecting the colour titling of the previous two works, Colored Map H, from 1971, consolidates and simplifies the ideas explored in the Labeled Maps with the cell-like structures all appearing as coloured solid shapes.

Consisting of five colours: peach, red, blue, teal and lime yellow, the work follows the governing rules of Cohen’s Territorial Maps where two forms with the same colour are not touching, yet every colour will come into contact with the other four colours within the painting. How would it look, Cohen asked, if a space were seeded randomly with a number of forms, all of which were allowed to grow, amoeba fashion, until the space was filled , no form being allowed to cross the boundaries of its neighbours?

To create this work, Cohen instructed the computer to begin with a number of circles dispersed over an area and then to expand them in a cellular fashion. The resultant composition was traced onto the large canvas and coloured by hand. Optically, the painting changes radically as the viewer concentrates on it. Forms seem to emerge towards the viewer as we focus on them, their adjacent forms receding, and vice versa as we shift our gaze.