“And what really shocked me is that I had never thought about sculpture at all…the interesting thing is that, since that point…I haven’t forgotten it. And that’s what led to the draped paintings; I mean, trying to produce a work that was about both painting and sculpture.” Sam Gilliam

Sam Gilliam has consistently pushed the possibilities of painting and upended the hierarchy of medium on flat (rectangular) substrate to encompass more minimal, and more maximal, modes of expression. Perhaps seemingly incongruous at first glance, the arc of his oeuvre is best understood as a means by which Gilliam has explored how to make a painting which exists in more ways than simply plain paint on canvas - and after his encounter with Kenneth Noland also to exist at once purely as a painting and also as a sculpture. Blue from the seminal period of 1970 is a superb example of Gilliam’s creative power – a shaped canvas, but without the support of a stretcher, fully imbued with coloration that serves both as medium and message.

By 1970, Gilliam had abandoned the hard-edged abstraction which had first garnered critical acclaim; gone beyond his Beveled paintings which served to solidly establish his interest in the sculptural nature of painting; and had arrived at the idea of the drape painting which perfectly embodied all that he was attempting to accomplish in his work. The performative nature of his style of minimalism and the manner in which these pieces fill the room, bring a wonderful maximalist quality to the work, and do so in an elegantly simple manner. Blue exists as a star-shaped canvas permeated with a rich chromatic array ranging from periwinkle blue to coral pink, intense vermilion and soft sunny yellow. The all-over composition is enveloping and defies a singular focal point. Unlike a drape which hangs from the ceiling, Blue is mounted to the wall and with its irregular cut-outs and rough edges self-evidences its creation by Gilliam’s hands. Whereas the flowing quality of the color defies, even denies, the artist’s hand, the physical, sculptural, nature of the composition reinvests the work with the artist’s presence.

In the course of his over six-decade long career there has been perhaps only one other artist to so radically explore the nature of the medium in the same fashion as Gilliam. Frank Stella’s own evolution from hard-edged abstractionist to maximalist sculptor may seem as incongruous as Gilliam’s until one understands and acknowledges the common thread driving the practice. Gilliam, like Stella, was never satisfied to churn out repetitive works of the same nature, instead developing and exploring all of the various avenues on which his creative energies would alight. Blue, in its visual beauty, structural intrigue, and overall impressions perfectly encapsulates the best aspects of Gilliam’s practice.