Untitled (Black and Cream Butterfly)

"Grotjahnis not an artist obsessed with positing a wholly unprecedented 'concept' of art, but rather is concerned with teasing nuanced experience out of existing concepts or constructs according to the opportunities presented by a specific, well-calcuclated conceit"
(R. Storr, 'LA Push-Pull Po-Mo-Stop-Go,' Mark Grotjahn, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2009, p. 6).

Exquisitely rendered in ebony colored pencil set atop an effused cream ground, the beveled lines create an almost planar composition and endow the work with the sublime diversity of hue, texture, and tone. In spite of the minimalist palette, the luster of the meticulously handcrafted, theatrical black lines vibrate and oscillate, offering further comparison with the heroic work of Newman. The viewer, in front of this awe-inspiring painting, is instantly enveloped and drawn into the vortex of mysticism that enshrouds the work, almost forcing contemplation and reflection.

Splitting the canvas dramatically on the vertical, the broad cream band slices the vanishing points, asymmetrically projecting propeller-like blades out of the two misaligned axes. A mesmerizing optical illusion, the white and black radials appear to both approach and recede the central band with high-speed momentum, alluding to notions of light, space, and religiosity, which harness the sense of the metaphysical. Yet, these dynamic beams are stopped in their tracks by the longitudinal bands that enclose the center and edges of the composition, bringing it back to the level ground of modernist flatness in a manner reminiscent of Barnett Newman's 'zips.' The skewed angles and bold, competing colors of Grotjahn's Butterfly series knowingly allude to geometric abstraction's numerous art histories; including the utopian vision of Russian Constructivism, the reductive strategies of Minimalism, and the hallucinatory patterning of Op Art. As Robert Storr has aptly put it: "Grotjahn is not an artist obsessed with positing a wholly unprecedented 'concept' of art, but rather is concerned with teasing nuanced experience out of existing concepts or constructs according to the opportunities presented by a specific, well-calcuclated conceit. Nor is he really preoccupied with Ezra Pound's mandate to 'make it new;' rather he wants to make it vivid, and applies all of his impressive skill to doing just that" (R. Storr, "LA Push-Pull Po-Mo-Stop-Go," Mark Grotjahn, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, New York, 2009, p. 6).