10/1/2008
Anthony Titus
Museum 52, New York
The Light in the Window is a Crack in the Sky. The artists' work explores geometric abstraction through a self-developed language of collage, faceted planes, and line. The body of work featured in the exhibition begins with his interest in the cult television show The Joy of Painting. Having completed two of the paintings according to The Joy of Painting's instructions Titus has followed a process of deconstruction and abstraction that has resulted in the piece for the exhibition.
Museum 52 is delighted to announce the first solo show for New York based artist, Anthony
Titus. Titus’ work explores geometric abstraction through a self-developed language of collage,
faceted planes, and lines.
The body of work featured in the exhibition begins with his interest in the cult television show
The Joy of Painting. Within the show the presenter, Bob Ross, would methodically take the
viewer through a step-by-step process of painting a landscape. The systematically layered
elements of the painting respond to the thirty-minute time frame of the broadcast.
Titus is interested in Ross’ idea that an artwork can be produced within a specific amount of
time. He is also interested in the separation between the viewer and the presenter by the
television being representative of the abstraction process.
For the exhibition Titus has produced a series of multimedia wall and floor based pieces.
Having completed two of the paintings according to The Joy of Painting’s instructions, he
begins to deconstruct the images using a computer, creating an initial vocabulary of form and
line. His sculpture Empty Field 1 presents a mixture of surfaces including gloss, enamelled steel
panels and screen-printed steel sheets. The sculptural works explore the layered process
adopted in the Joy of Painting. The initial language of form created through the deconstruction
process is freely explored to create faceted black sculptures that incorporate dual-tone screen
prints.
Also included in the show are a series of paintings that examine the systematic method by
which the paintings were made on the television show. Titus begins the paintings with a
collaged image printed from similar source material to the screen prints. This is combined with
a geometric network of lines and planes. Titus chooses a series of colors to complete the space
of the painting. Having mapped out all the possibilities for this one pattern with the chosen
colors, a smaller number of paintings have been made to represent the wealth of possibility for
his self-designed system.
Within the paintings, Titus pays particular attention to the surface, leaving parts of the canvas
bare while other parts are painted multiple times. The attention to surface emphasises the
depth within the painting and is enhanced by the presence of the collaged image.
Juxtaposing a limited number of lines, planes, colors and reproduced images of the
landscape, he establishes a space where abstraction and landscape both echo and challenge
one another.
Titus’ work explores rigorous geometric abstraction as an analogue to nature. Titus examines
them in relation to one another, not only juxtaposing the two, but seeing nature as a source of
abstraction.
Preview 11 January 2007 6 - 8 pm
Museum 52
95 Rivington Street at Ludlow - New York
Tuesday - Saturday 11am – 6pm