Lot Essay
The present composition follows the general rectilinear format of the artist's minimalist works that distinguishes him in an artistic community which has a strong figurative lineage. The device sets up what constitutes a framing situation: the picture seems to offer a series of 'window' that suggests views onto vistas, but offers only a circumscribed sense of space. Characteristic of Lao's process of working and re-working the surface, the painting evinces a layered and variegated skin replete with textures. Evincing the imperfect registry and tremor of line, the paint, the work underscores the artist's process of creating. Alternating between passages of tactile opacity and airy luminosity, the resulting work renders space equivocal, tense between depth and flatness. Comprising a lineal black grille through which white, gray, black and blue are glimpsed, the work is at once a window through which a view is glimpsed as well as an abstract pattern comprising very subtle colours entrapped within a rigidly geometric framework. Fraught with ambiguity, the painting requires a slowing down of the viewing process to allow for discoveries, much like the artist's own extended method of execution.