Text Painting (Pay Attention)

While many painters often feel burdened by the baggage of art history, Peter Davies celebrates it. His work thrives on his own personal idols and heroes of the art world, from El Greco ("the art equivalent of Marlon Brando in the Godfather!") to Sue Williams ("I just can't verbalise the way in which I fucking love her work"). In 'Text Painting', 1996, Davies humourously and poignantly describes those artists he rates and why. As in the 'Joke Paintings' of Richard Prince, 'Text Painting' can be seen as a snappy comic statement - but the formalization of the work owes more to the structuralism and colour scheme of artists such as Piet Mondrian and Jackson Pollock. Stepping away from the picture, the words become obscured and the work makes a clever transition into complete abstraction. While Davies' work can often be seen as playing a joke on the history of Modern Art, it succeeds in adding a new and exciting level of conceptualism and abstraction to the realm of contemporary painting.