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
Fredrik Værslev's 'Terrazzo' series exemplifies the artist's commitment to expressing process over representation, combining deliberate studio manipulations—including paint drips, drops, and brushstrokes—with chemical solvents before surrendering the works to the forces of nature. Each canvas is left outstretched on the ground outside his studio for six months, allowing environmental exposure to deposit an assortment of faint natural and technical stains across the surface, executed in spray paint, house paint, corrosion protective spray lacquer, and white spirit on canvas. The resulting works embody a compelling tension between pictorial depth and surface flatness, circumventing narrative in favour of a purely physical and conceptual engagement with the act of painting itself.
- Medium
- spray paint, house paint, corrosion protective spray lacquer, white spirit on canvas
- Spotted At
- Auction House · Phillips
🔨 Auction Lot
Under the Influence
April 13, 2015
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