“Grotjahn's abstractions are, in relation to traditional pictorial modes, a matter of having your cake and eating it too, of experiencing vertiginous spatial illusions only to be brought back to the level ground of modernist flatness-only then to have the picture plane once again yield to the probing eye...” (R. Storr, "La Push-Pull/Po-Mo-Stop-Go,"
Mark Grotjahn's colored pencil on paper work exemplifies his mastery of spatial tension, as radiating lines converge and diverge to create a pulsating sense of depth that simultaneously asserts the flatness of its surface. The meticulous layering of colored pencil strokes generates a luminous, almost hypnotic field where perspective both advances and retreats in a continuous visual oscillation. Grotjahn's command of the medium transforms humble paper and pencil into a sophisticated arena where illusionistic space and modernist flatness engage in an unresolved, endlessly compelling dialogue.
- Medium
- colored pencil on paper
- Spotted At
- Auction House · Phillips
🔨 Auction Lot
Contemporary Art & Design Evening Sale
March 6, 2014
More by Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Tuscan Red and Pink Rose Butterfly 45.90)
2015
"The ‘Face Paintings’ allow me to express myself in a way that the ‘Butterflies’ don’t. I have an idea as to what sort of face is going to happen when I do a ‘Face Painting,’ but I don’t exactly know what color it will take, or how many eyes it’s going to have, whereas the ‘Butterflies’ are fairly planned out. They’re still intuitive, but I generally know where they are going. It’s a different kind of freedom, a different kind of expressionism. It’s personal without being overtly personal."
Untitled (Black and Brown Butterfly 647a & 647b)
2006
Spotted works by Mark Grotjahn
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