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拍品专文
Incorporating many of the artist's motifs in roughly screen-printed layers, Untitled (P252) exposes Christopher Wool's process of painting. Wool began his association with domestic patterning with a series of works utilizing decorators' rollers designed to print wallpaper patterns. Untitled (P252) represents a body of paintings begun in the early 1990's, where Wool began to enlarge these store bought patterns. Using silk screens to blow up the original designs gave Wool control over the scale and composition of his work that was not available to him using the fixed format of the rollers. Wool typically uses the screens to layer the designs over one another, rendering the forms in varying states of legibility. In Untitled (P252) the obfuscation of the image is reinforced by roughly concealing the layers of printed patterns and clip-art with dripping, rolled out white paint and a rare splash of bright acid yellow. By reproducing his found patterns and working in a reduced colour palette Wool denies the possibilities personal creative expression in painting. The act of concealment in Untitled (P252) creates a tension between production and erasure that pushes the limitations of his process.
The use of floral imagery and silk-screened production technique in Untitled (P252) recalls Warhol's Flowers series. Wool adopts the Pop artist's methods of replicating systems of mass production and his appropriation of mundane everyday imagery, questioning the importance of the artist as artefact maker and signifying a rejection of the idea that artworks are unique objects separate from reality. Although silk-screen printing lends itself to the reproduction of photographic imagery, Wool only chooses to work with graphically produced designs that are connected more to the human desire to create art.
Like Warhol, Wool has a certain cool remove from the act of painting. The patterns are selected for their extreme banality; supposedly leave them empty of meaning, to encourage the viewer to focus on the artistic process. The compulsive layering exposes the progress of his labour and creates a palimpsest of actions to decipher. Despite his use of patterning and its connections to the domestic environment, Wool's continued emphasis on the process of painting rather than what it represents extends the boundaries of abstraction.
The use of floral imagery and silk-screened production technique in Untitled (P252) recalls Warhol's Flowers series. Wool adopts the Pop artist's methods of replicating systems of mass production and his appropriation of mundane everyday imagery, questioning the importance of the artist as artefact maker and signifying a rejection of the idea that artworks are unique objects separate from reality. Although silk-screen printing lends itself to the reproduction of photographic imagery, Wool only chooses to work with graphically produced designs that are connected more to the human desire to create art.
Like Warhol, Wool has a certain cool remove from the act of painting. The patterns are selected for their extreme banality; supposedly leave them empty of meaning, to encourage the viewer to focus on the artistic process. The compulsive layering exposes the progress of his labour and creates a palimpsest of actions to decipher. Despite his use of patterning and its connections to the domestic environment, Wool's continued emphasis on the process of painting rather than what it represents extends the boundaries of abstraction.