25/9/2008
Wade Guyton
Portikus, Frankfurt
The works of New York-based artist Wade Guyton engage the formal repertory of modernism, from Bauhaus and constructivism to Minimal, Conceptual, and Appropriation art. Since 2005, Guyton has worked primarily on canvas; his tool, however, is not the brush but an Epson Stylus Pro 4000/9600 inkjet printer, a machine used for large-format prints.
The works of New York-based artist Wade Guyton (b. 1972) engage the
formal repertory of modernism, from Bauhaus and constructivism to
Minimal,
Conceptual, and Appropriation art. Since 2005, Guyton has worked
primarily on canvas; his tool, however, is not the brush but an Epson
Stylus Pro 4000/9600
inkjet printer, a machine used for large-format prints. Using a
computer, Guyton produces abstract paintings: he designs the motifs on
the computer and then
puts them on canvas using the printer; sources of error such as using
a carrier material other than the one for which the machine is
conceived, manipulating
the color supplies, and deliberately jolting and pulling the material
while the printer is working are an intentional part of this process,
creating smudges, drippings,
or distortions and displacements that turn a model designed for serial
reproduction into a series of original objects.
The productive
interaction of digital and manual
procedures has always played a central role in Guyton’s practice. The
calculated influence of chance renders each element of a series
distinctive and unrepeatable.
The result has pictorial qualities even though mechanical means
predominate in the process of production—at the same time, however,
the ostensible drive toward
serial work cycles negates the claim to originality usually inherent
in classical painting. It would seem that Guyton both loves the
anarchical painterly gesture
recognizable in his direct intervention into the process, and employs
his means in very pragmatic ways. His work, perhaps unlike that of
many other “formalists”,
is very contemporary in that it directly involves and draws upon the
immediately available technological means.
The new works are all black monochromatic paintings. They were made on
the same large-format Epson printer and in the same way as the works
of the past three
years with which those who know Guyton are familiar. As the carrier
for these new works he chose a primed linen fabric that is properly
meant to be used for oil
paintings and not for inkjet prints. As a consequence, the brittle
ground absorbs the images, signs, and letters Guyton continues to use
in his designs much more
strongly; the ink is distributed across the fabric instead of sitting
directly on the surface, as in the earlier works. The artist
subsequently used this new interaction
between the canvas surface and the ink by overprinting his own works
with a rectangle of black designed in Photoshop. Repeated overprinting
led to the emergence
of an unexpectedly pictorial color gradient. Every individual work
displays the artist’s interventions: the traces of movement, the
various stages of ink getting denser
and denser, the marks left by wheels in the wet ink, intermingled with
the scratches and streaks the painting incurred when it was dragged
across the floor in order
to be fed back into the printer.
With the generous support of UBS Deutschland AG.
Opening: September 26, 2008, 8 pm
Portikus
Alte Brucke 2 (Maininsel) - Frankfurt