Dana Schutz - Contemporary Art Day Sale London Monday, February 10, 2014 | Phillips
  • Provenance

    LFL Gallery, New York

  • Catalogue Essay

    Dana Schutz's paintings represent a departure from the decadent figurative tradition seen I the second half of the twentieth-century. Her subjects have been selected directly from her imagination. Her metanarrative represents a fantasy which is at the same time a plausible reality. This portrait of an invented albino girl is the beginning and end of a portrayl which can only be found within the viewer's gaze and imagination. Disinterested in any conventional form of artistic classification in terms of genre, subject matter and style, Schutz's work are purely driven by the artist's imagination whose ever-changing nature leads to the impossibility of a define and fixed style. The expressionistic brushstrokes are so evidently present on the canvas that the viewer cannot avoid acknowledging the artist's power of creating life on canvas. This life is inevitably intertwined with art: each brushstroke interchanges between a painterly gesture and the depiction of the girl's flesh. The boldness of the colours and forms allude to an emotional approach to the canvas; the latter being a site where creativity and everyday experience of reality can be projected openly. The choice of subject has no shocking intent; instead the girl's grotesque, discomforting , mysterious and captivating appearance encourage narrative, ambiguity and empathy.

    "Although the paintings themselves are not specifically narrative, I often invent imaginative systems and situations to generate information. These situations usually delineate a site where making is a necessity, audiences potentially don't exist, objects transcend their function and reality is malleable." -Dana Schutz

118

Albino with Wig

2002
oil on canvas
50.8 x 45.7 cm. (20 x 17 7/8 in)
Signed and dated "Dana Schutz 2002" on the reverse.

Estimate
£40,000 - 60,000 

Sold for £52,500

Contact Specialist
Henry Highley
Head of Sale
hhighley@phillips.com
+ 44 20 7318 4061

Contemporary Art Day Sale

London Day Sale 11 February 2014 2pm