Statement
Gerrit Rietveld’s Red/Blue Chair, 1919 is an icon of modernist design. It is the first image that comes to mind when one thinks of the De Stijl movement. He has made many other chairs almost as iconic. One that has especially interested me is the Berlin Chair, 1922. It is made of 8 rectangular planks of wood painted 2 black, 1dark grey, 1 middle grey, 1 light grey and 3 white. That these pieces make up a nice run from black to white and combined with color grounds go toward a long standing goal of paintings that combine color with black and white. I have made reference to several of Rietveld chairs but these recent paintings based on the Berlin Chair have allowed me to be more productive in coming up with different examples.
Instead of depicting the chair whole I have in every instance deployed the 8 disassembled
components in various ways but always as the complete set of 8 so they add up to the chair if reassembled. The first ones were set either in formation or scattered, or piled on monochrome grounds. Then the 8 pieces were arrayed around an imaginary circle or describing a square. Wanting to make matters more complex the pieces were put upon 2 color and 3 color grounds. The next steps have the pieces on checkerboard and opposed square grounds.
There is a famous wall and sliding doors at the Katsura Villa in Kyoto that have a checkerboard pattern. Positioning the chair components against such a background may be a stretch but, in some way, it brought Rietveld to Japan.
Placing the 8 pieces as a circle on top of an opposed square ground resulted in a big surprise.
The BMW logo emerged.
Without being told, one would not know that these paintings refer to the Berlin Chair; they could be just abstract geometric hard edge paintings. Since 1985 if not earlier I have sought to question that abstract painting has no referent other than itself. Almost all my work has a back story.
Disability: Parkinson’s
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