Dana Schutz - Bowler - 2020
Schutz’s imagery poses pictorial questions with humour and imagination, while referencing the art historical. Often characters and figures appear to push out of the picture frame or twist to fit themselves on the canvas.
The figure of the bowler recurs in Schutz’s paintings and prints, such as an early minimalist painting of a bowling ball; a square, monochrome black painting with three finger holes. Here the Bowler possesses a menacing force, poised for action. The larger-than-life scale of the figure is imposing yet comical, destructive energy tightly confined within the picture’s borders. Schutz’s mark-making and drawing within the work is gestural and highly frenetic, adding to it’s dynamism and sense of ’bursting out’.
Schutz’s subject matter is the chaotic energy of everyday life and imagery. Sometimes her characters can eat themselves, creating an allegorical narrative where painting becomes its own subject. Schutz’s figures are often in impossible or contradictory situations, she says “I want the paintings to be singular and alive.”
Medium: Etching with aquatint in two colours
Size: 108 x 76 cm (42.5 x 30 in.)
Edition of 30
Signed and numbered
Price: £ 5,000 (Members £ 4,500)
Sanya Kantarovsky - Potato - 2020
Potato, 2020 pictures a man holding a small dog - we assume ‘Potato’. The man, who looks sullen and drawn is typical of Kantarovsky’s subjects, who often appear dislocated from an existential narrative, reminiscent of Russian or European satirical illustrations or characters from literature. Kantarovsky however pits the abject against a dark humour and the pathos in the work is emphasised by the artist’s choice of colour and materials; the cross-hatched fine lines of the etching process and soft greys of the chine-collé and paper ground.
Medium: Etching with Chine-collé on Pescia Grey and Sekishu Kozogami Tsuru
Size: 39.5 x 30.5cm
Edition of 30
Signed and numbered
Price: £1,500 (Members £ 1,350)
These limited edition prints are available at Whitechapel Gallery
