Roxy Paine USA, b. 1966
Untitled (Dip-Painting), 1997
Acrylic on linen on panel
30 x 51 x 5 in
76.2 x 129.5 x 12.7 cm
76.2 x 129.5 x 12.7 cm
4169
Further images
Untitled (Dip Painting) is part of Roxy Paine's series of mechanically fabricated artworks, which interrogate the implications of digital fabrication and where it would lead art making. Paine does not...
Untitled (Dip Painting) is part of Roxy Paine's series of mechanically fabricated artworks, which interrogate the implications of digital fabrication and where it would lead art making. Paine does not make these dipped canvasses, per se, at least not insofar as one might traditionally describe the act of art making. Instead, designed a machine which makes these paintings for him. The machine rhythmically dips a canvas into a vat of paint, over and over, sometimes for weeks on end to gradually build up layers of paint which eventually descend like stalactites from the bottom edge of the canvas. Despite being machine made, each final object is always unique thanks to the random chaos of small variations in in the paint, canvas, and air, which all produce minor variations that take on their own character. Within this series, Paine’s exploration of organic versus synthetic takes on a complex contradiction: are his machine made paintings “artificial” because they are not crafted by the hands of the artist whose name they bear? Or are they ”natural" because they are devoid of choices and manipulations from an artist's hand, and therefore not responding to art history and aesthetics? Formed by a process set into motion by an unseen creative force, whatever we think of them as objects they are as undeniable as a mountain range, canyon, or the stalactites they so closely resemble.