Untitled, from 2007, is the “ostensibly black monochrome” work by Wade Guyton that employs a pared down visual vocabulary and an Epson printer to investigate the relationships between technology, printing and painting. Guyton abandoned traditional drawing and painting techniques in favour of digital printing early in his career, realising that “the process of drawing didn’t make sense to me. The labour didn’t match up to what I was trying to do. And I thought the printer could make these things better than I could.” (Carol Vogel, Painting, Rebooted, the New York Times, Art and Design, 27 September 2012). Rather than a brush and paint, his tools are an Epson printer, Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop – commonplace technology. Although his works are made using a printer, Guyton refers to those on linen as ‘paintings’ rather than prints, implicitly testing the limits of the medium. The definition of painting is further challenged by the lack of direct relationship between the artist and art work, undermining the traditional concept of artistic skill. Guyton works in dialogue with 20th century artists who similarly challenged the traditional codes of painting. Daniel Buren, for example, sought to challenge the tradition of painting by repositioning painting as process or manufacture rather than as representation.

Guyton’s work plays on the disparity between the image created on the screen and that produced by the printer; between the idea and its materialisation. The relationship between the two is confounded by Guyton’s use of primed linen rather than paper, resulting in a struggle between material and printer which is made visible through the smudges, skids and uneven distribution of ink. Further accidental marks are the result of the printed linen rolling onto the studio floor, causing the pure black ink to be sullied by dirt and dust. The white line running through the centre of the work further indicates the process behind the work, as this line marks where Guyton folded the linen to allow the large swathe of material to fit in the printer. The painting is therefore as much a product of chance as of the predetermined image Guyton created on his computer. In this sense, this image can be seen as a visual record of the process, as Guyton comments: “The works on linen are a record of their own making which at times can include accidents in the printing or in the physical act of making them, like when I drag a canvas across a studio floor.” (Carol Vogel, Painting, Rebooted, the New York Times, Art and Design, 27 September 2012)

These chance marks and skids also cause the image to be only ‘ostensibly’ a black rectangle. The subtle nuances in the work, which can only be observed close to the painting, imbue the work with a sense of impulsive creation and painterliness. The use of the monochromatic form again draws upon modernist abstraction. Malevich’s iconic Black Square is also ostensibly a pure black shape, with nuances visible upon close confrontation with the work. For Malevich, the black square was a concentration of art’s essence, representing a new beginning in the tradition of painting, for Guyton, the square reveals the impossibility of perfection in the painted or printed image.

There is a great deal of self-conscious irony involved in using a printer, designed to reproduce images with precision, to create an image that is so obscure. Guyton acknowledges that he is pushing technology beyond its capabilities: "The resulting images aren't exactly what the machines are designed for - slick digital photographs. There is often a struggle between the printer and my material - and the traces of this are left on the surface: snags, drips, streaks, mis-registrations, blurs."(Amze Emmons, Wade Guyton: Action Printer, Printeresting, 18 July, 2009 www.printeresting.org)

The intersection between technology and art is here part of a larger art historical debate, recalling Marcel Duchamp, Andy Warhol and Agnes Martin. Warhol similarly toyed with the relationship between technology and art, commenting that “Paintings are too hard. The things I want to show are mechanical. Machines have less problems.” Whilst Warhol sought to be a machine-like creator himself, Guyton assigns creative responsibility to the machine. (Amze Emmons, Wade Guyton: Action Printer, Printeresting, 18 July, 2009)

Although Guyton’s paintings are made via unfamiliar means, his work is visually familiar. As already suggested, comparisons can be drawn with Pop Art, Minimalism and Constructivism, as he employs the formal vocabulary of modernism in his work. Visually this work can therefore be understood as an elegant study of the minimal, monochromatic form, revisiting 20th century experiments in abstraction, drawing on the likes of Frank Stella, Mark Rothko and Sol LeWitt. However, Guyton’s work is unmistakably contemporary, and can almost be seen as a documentation of 21st century America. The marks produced by the printer are familiar to everyone in this digital age, and Guyton’s work can be understood as exploring the relationship between the physical and digital realms in today’s society.

This work therefore raises a number of intriguing questions, challenging the viewer to reconsider the nature of painting and its relationship to digital images. Whilst the unusual methods Guyton employs indicate his interest in contemporary issues of debate around the role of technology, visually his work recalls a rich history of abstract art.