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Lot Essay
Representative of Dial's output following a controversial feature on the television show 60 Minutes, Creation of Life in the Blackberry Patch illustrates the artist's desire to make a conscious visual break with his past while still working with themes of reflection and memory.
As acknowledged by Paul Arnett, Dial's output post-1993 is marked by a number of stylistic changes. First, and most obvious, was the overall darkening of Dial's palette, originally misinterpreted as a reflection of Dial's disappointment following the airing of the 60 Minutes program. Arnett later discovered that the new colors were an attempt to make 'unfriendly,' 'self-outcasting' art. Dial also began to pare down his assemblages, keeping them more grounded to the surface and losing much of their three-dimensionality that often conveyed such a sense of optimism and eagerness. Dial's technique also underwent a regression of sorts, and he often discarded brushes in favor of simply squeezing tubes of paint straight onto his piece and reverted to using house paint. Finally, Dial sought to further emphasize a sense of ambiguity and effacement by spraying the completed work with a coat of spray paint (Paul Arnett, "Self-Taut: On Dial's Style," Thornton Dial in the 21st Century (Atlanta, 2005), p.121).
As acknowledged by Paul Arnett, Dial's output post-1993 is marked by a number of stylistic changes. First, and most obvious, was the overall darkening of Dial's palette, originally misinterpreted as a reflection of Dial's disappointment following the airing of the 60 Minutes program. Arnett later discovered that the new colors were an attempt to make 'unfriendly,' 'self-outcasting' art. Dial also began to pare down his assemblages, keeping them more grounded to the surface and losing much of their three-dimensionality that often conveyed such a sense of optimism and eagerness. Dial's technique also underwent a regression of sorts, and he often discarded brushes in favor of simply squeezing tubes of paint straight onto his piece and reverted to using house paint. Finally, Dial sought to further emphasize a sense of ambiguity and effacement by spraying the completed work with a coat of spray paint (Paul Arnett, "Self-Taut: On Dial's Style," Thornton Dial in the 21st Century (Atlanta, 2005), p.121).