How can an artwork be filled with competing colours, forms and ideas and still come together as a whole? The answer often lies in unity. But what is unity in art, and how can understanding it change the way you look at a work? Maddox Gallery explores the three types of unity in art through eight artists, from Bridget Riley and Keith Haring to RETNA and Cooper, examining the relationship between unity and variety and how understanding art composition can inform the choices you make for your collection.

Some artworks contain an extraordinary amount of visual information without appearing chaotic, while others are reduced to just a handful of colours, lines or forms and still feel complete. Despite their differences, both can create the sense that the individual elements of a work belong together, a concept known in art as unity.

One of the key principles of art composition, unity does not depend on everything looking alike. Contrasting colours, forms or ideas can all exist within the same work, linked in ways that give the composition coherence. Artists can create these connections through repetition, rhythm and pattern, or through a unifying idea that runs through an entire work or series.

Unity can play an important role in understanding art, helping to explain how artists create order while still allowing room for contrast, surprise and variety. For collectors, it offers another way to consider not simply what catches the eye, but why.

So, what is unity in art, and how can you learn to recognise it? The first thing to know is that there are three main types. In this article, we examine each in detail through the work of leading Contemporary artists, exploring an example of unity in art in each case. We also consider how unity differs from harmony, how it works alongside variety, and how these principles can inform the way you experience and collect art.

RETNA, Golden Tiger (2025)

The 3 Types of Unity in Art

There are three types of unity in art – compositional, conceptual and Gestalt – with each describing a different way of tying an artwork together. Compositional unity relies on visual organisation, conceptual unity on a shared idea or theme, and Gestalt unity on the way our minds perceive relationships between separate forms. We explore each below.

Compositional Unity in Art: How Visual Elements Work Together

Bridget Riley, Going Across (2001)

Compositional unity in art depends on how an artwork’s visual elements work together, with colour, line, pattern, alignment and proportion helping to guide the eye, even when the individual parts vary considerably.

One of the leading figures of Op Art, British artist Bridget Riley has spent decades investigating what happens when simple forms, colours and intervals recur. In her paintings and prints, carefully controlled elements interact to create compositions that seem to move before the eyes. Riley describes rhythm and repetition as being “at the root of movement” and has compared the latter to an “amplifier”, explaining that a simple form gains intensity through recurrence. Her words point to an important aspect of compositional unity, where individual elements become more powerful through their relationship to the whole.

Bridget Riley, Intervals 1 (2019)

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In Going Across (2001), Riley limits herself to just two colours, blue and ochre, arranging irregular, curving forms across the paper. No two are quite alike, but their related shapes and alternating colours establish a strong rhythm, bringing compositional unity to a work filled with variation. Intervals 1 (2019) is even more restrained, comprising five groups of horizontal bands in blue, green and violet, separated by expanses of white. Here, the alignment and recurring colours establish a relationship between the otherwise isolated bands, with small changes in their sequence introducing subtle differences.

Lefty Out There, Acidum Rubrum (2022)

Chicago-born Contemporary artist Lefty Out There began making art through the city’s graffiti and street-art scene, having previously studied music. That background led him to create art inspired by music, felt in his signature polymorphs, which multiply across his paintings in dense networks of looping, interlocking marks.

The artist has described his work as capable of appearing both “disorienting” and “highly organised”. In Acidum Rubrum (2022), contrasting colours and a multitude of individual marks compete for attention, while the repeating polymorphs impose an underlying order. Lefty says these forms “seem similar to the viewer, but are actually different every time”. That distinction is important here. Elements do not need to be identical to belong together. Differences in colour, direction and form provide the variety, while the polymorph supplies the constant.

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Conceptual Unity in Art: The Idea That Ties an Artwork Together

RETNA, Blooming Series #1 (2025)

An idea, theme or narrative can tie an artwork together, even when its colours, forms or subjects vary considerably. This is conceptual unity, and the same principle can extend beyond a single work to unite an entire series.

Los Angeles-based artist RETNA began his career in graffiti, where he developed the unique script that is a constant in his work. Inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphics, Hebrew, Roman lettering and Arabic calligraphy, he combines these different writing traditions with influences from street art to create a language of his own.

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It is the idea of universal communication that gives these diverse influences their conceptual unity. RETNA has said that he wants his text to “feel universal”, so that something about it feels familiar to people from different backgrounds, “whether they can read it or not”. In Blooming Series #1 (2025), the colours change and symbols accumulate in different configurations, but all belong to the same invented language.

David Yarrow, The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar (Colour) (2025)

Conceptual unity can also arise from storytelling. British photographer David Yarrow is known for his highly staged, cinematic images constructed in extraordinary detail, using location, figures, animals and props to build a single narrative. In The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar (Colour) (2025), a wolf leans on the windscreen of a snow-covered car as a woman sits behind the wheel, surrounded by smoke, figures and the blazing signs of the famous Wyoming bar. These seemingly unlikely subjects all contribute to Yarrow’s heightened vision of the American West, giving the photograph the quality of a cinematic scene.

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David Hockney, The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 - 1 January (2011)

David Hockney, Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire in 2011 - 19 March (2011)

In the series The Arrival of Spring in Woldgate, East Yorkshire (2011), British artist David Hockney takes a very different approach to conceptual unity. Returning to the same East Yorkshire landscape, he created 94 iPad drawings between January and June, documenting the countryside as winter gave way to spring. He selected 51 works for the finished series, in which bare trees come into leaf and the colours of the landscape change as the season progresses. Although every drawing records a different moment, the changing season gives the entire series its sense of unity.

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Gestalt Unity in Art: When the Mind Makes the Connection

Keith Haring, Pop Shop Quad I (1987)

Gestalt unity describes our tendency to perceive an artwork as a whole before focusing on its individual parts. The idea comes from Gestalt psychology, which explores how the mind organises what we see through principles such as proximity, similarity, continuation and closure. In art, this helps explain why separate shapes, lines or figures can be perceived as belonging to the same composition.

Pop artist Keith Haring emerged from New York’s downtown art scene in the early 1980s, becoming internationally known for his energetic graphic language of simplified figures and vivid colour. In 1986, he opened the Pop Shop in Soho, selling affordable objects bearing his imagery as part of his ambition to make art accessible to everybody. The following year, he created Pop Shop Quad I (1987), a screenprint comprising four characteristically animated scenes.

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Although visually distinct, the four scenes share Haring’s familiar human forms, colours and graphic lines. Their similarities encourage the eye to group them, so that the separate vignettes are perceived as belonging to the same image. The concept of Gestalt unity takes on added meaning in a work filled with figures reaching, touching and interacting, motifs that reflect Haring’s wider interest in human connection and community.

François Bonnel, meanwhile, finds complexity in the simplest of forms. The French artist came to painting later in life after a career in advertising, and his eye for graphic form is evident in his spare vocabulary of circles, rectangles, bands of colour and negative space.

In Viens (2025), blocks of blue, green, orange, pink, red and white acrylic and pigment are scattered across a dark background. Some are isolated, while others overlap, yet the eye instinctively groups them into a larger composition. Similar shapes, colours and the proximity of the blocks reinforce the sense that these separate forms belong within the same composition. This is Gestalt unity at its simplest, with the mind perceiving a whole from a collection of separate elements.

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Examples of Unity in Art

An example of unity in art can look very different from one artist to the next. The table below compares the works discussed so far and the compositional, conceptual or Gestalt principles at play in each.

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Unity vs Harmony in Art: What's the Difference?

Unity and harmony in art are closely related, but they are not quite the same. Unity describes how all parts of an artwork work together as a whole, while harmony refers to the compatibility between them.

An artist might create harmony through complementary colours, repeated shapes, similar textures or balanced proportions. These qualities can contribute to unity, but they are not essential to it. Clashing colours, dramatic contrasts or deliberately discordant elements can still form a coherent composition if there is a strong visual or conceptual connection running through the work.

This distinction is particularly relevant to Contemporary art, where contrast and disruption are often deliberate. Repetition, rhythm, colour, composition or a shared idea can provide unity without the need for visual harmony.

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Unity and Variety in Art 

Cooper, Conversation Pit with Cheetah Print on Couch (2024)

Unity is often discussed alongside variety because the two principles work in tension with one another. Unity brings the elements of an art composition together, while variety introduces differences that keep the eye engaged. An artist might repeat a colour or motif to establish unity, for example, while changing its scale, position or form to create variety. 

Some of the most famous examples of variety in art show just how much can change within a composition without losing its sense of unity. In Henri Matisse’s The Red Studio (1911), paintings, furniture and objects fill the room, but the expanse of Venetian red brings these disparate elements together. Vincent van Gogh’s The Starry Night (1889) achieves something very different, with recurring curves and rhythmic brushwork creating connections between the swirling sky, stars, cypress tree and landscape below.

This balance between repetition and difference has occupied artists and thinkers for centuries. In 1726, the philosopher Francis Hutcheson described beauty as “uniformity amidst variety”, a phrase that perfectly captures the relationship between the two.

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The paintings of Contemporary American artist Cooper offer an excellent example of unity and variety in art, and how they can work in tandem. His richly patterned paintings transform domestic interiors into densely layered worlds, where recurring colours, patterns and forms create connections amid a profusion of detail.

In Conversation Pit with Cheetah Print on Couch (2024), Cooper fills the interior with competing patterns, plants, flowers, books, cushions and decorative objects, with colour providing a thread through it all. Yellow travels from the flowers in the foreground to the floor, ceiling and objects on the table, while black moves from the sofas into other areas of the room. Vertical stripes appear at several points, as ivy climbs upwards and foliage emerges from behind the furniture. There is enormous variety in what we see, but these visual echoes give the eye familiar points to return to.

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David Hockney, 16th March 2021, Tulips in a Cut Glass (2021)

David Hockney’s 16th March 2021, Tulips in a Cut Glass (2021) is another example of unity and variety in art. A vase of loosely rendered pink and purple tulips sits against a deep burgundy background and red-and-white checked tablecloth, creating a lively mix of colour, pattern and mark-making. Look more closely, however, and certain hues recur throughout the image. Pinks and reds move between the flowers, tablecloth and background, while green runs from the stems and leaves into the glass vase and its shadow below. These echoes create continuity between areas that otherwise differ considerably in their treatment and texture.

How to Recognise Unity in an Art Composition

François Bonnel, L'Inconnu en Personne (2025)

So, what is unity in art when you are actually standing in front of an artwork? Once you know what to look for, it becomes easier to spot. An artwork showing unity will usually contain visual or conceptual connections that bring its individual elements together. Here are five things to consider:

• Step back. Take in the whole artwork before focusing on individual details. What registers first from a distance, and how do its various elements relate to one another?

• Look for repetition. Notice whether a colour, line, shape or motif crops up in different places. As Riley, Haring and Cooper demonstrate, recurring elements can provide structure within even a highly complex composition.

• Notice what changes. Repetition rarely means exact duplication. Pay attention to shifts in colour, scale, direction or form that introduce variety and interrupt the pattern.

• Follow your eye. Where does your gaze land first, and where does it go next? Its route through the artwork can reveal relationships that are not immediately obvious.

• Consider what unifies it. Sometimes the answer is visual, such as colour, rhythm or recurring forms. Sometimes it is an idea or narrative, as we saw with RETNA, Yarrow and Hockney. Often, both are at play.

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Looking in this way can also be useful when choosing between works by the same artist. Two pieces may share the qualities you immediately associate with that artist, but use colour, repetition, contrast or variation in quite different ways. Paying attention to those differences can help articulate what you respond to in one work over another.

Unity can extend beyond an individual artwork, too. Across a collection, connections can emerge through colour, subject, form or sensibility, linking works by very different artists without requiring them to look alike. As your collection grows, recognising these recurring threads can reveal what piques your interest most and help you understand your own taste more clearly.

Unity and the Art of Collecting

RETNA, Babycakes (2025)

Unity is ultimately about connection: the relationships between colour and form, repetition and variation, individual details and the whole. Once you begin to notice those relationships, even familiar artworks can offer something new to see. Recognising unity can reveal more about the choices an artist has made and how different elements interact across a composition. It is a principle that can enrich both the experience of looking at art and the decisions we make about the works we choose to live with.

Explore works by the artists featured in this article, or speak to a Maddox art advisor about the next addition to your collection.

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