Fredrik Værslev - Under the Influence London Sunday, April 12, 2015 | Phillips

Under the Influence

London Auction 13 April 2015  4pm

  • Provenance

    Johan Berggren, Malmö

  • Catalogue Essay

    The present lot, a work from Frederik Værslev’s ‘Terrazzo’ series, exemplifies the artist’s efforts to express artistic process rather than meaning or representation. Produced through a combination of focused studio manipulations, such as paint drips, drops and brushstrokes, as well as through the utilisation of chemical solvents, Værslev then allows the uncontrollable forces of Mother Nature to shape the appearance of his abstracted works. Both production and product are crucial to Værslev’s practice, a focus that is further accentuated through the absence of narrative and an emphasis on the dichotomy of pictorial depth and flatness of surface. By lying each marked, upstretched canvases on the ground outside his studio for six months, Værslev’s creates works that embody a sense of wear and method which is exemplified through the assortment of faint natural and technical stains and markings scattered across the surface of the canvas. Værslev’s endeavours are strictly in the pursuit of art: his works both offer and argue for a redefinition of painting through playful experimentation. By circumventing representation and allowing the intensity of the physicality of the works to perform conceptually, Værslev’s raises questions about how painting could be considered through the message of the medium.“I’m interested in mark-making as a set of moves. If you believe enough in them, in those actions as much as I do, it doesn’t matter so much how they end up." -FREDERIK VAERSLEV

23

Fredrik Værslev

Untitled (Terrazzo)

2011
spray paint, house paint, corrosion protective spray lacquer, white spirit on canvas
195 x 155.2 cm (76 3/4 x 61 1/8 in.)
Signed and dated 'Fredrik Vaerslev 2011' on the overlap.

Estimate
£60,000 - 80,000 ♠

Sold for £62,500

Contact Specialist
Tamila Kerimova
Head of Under the Influence, London
+44 207 318 4065

Under the Influence

London Auction 13 April 2015  4pm