Amy Sillman. Photo by Brad Harris
"Every day the raw, the goofy,
the inexplicable, the urgent,
the disrupting, the embarrassing,
the awful, the complex, and the
fearsome barge into my life,
whether I like it or not. I respond
with paintings that are partly cartoon,
partly lament, partly grudge, that I
hope are unpredictable, beautiful,
but sort of shaggy. Doubt can be an
advantage. I have no advance visual
strategy. I don't make drawings before
I begin and I make a lot of changes
intuitively as I go along.
I have an eye for the beauty of
ugliness, awkwardness, isolation.
Like a fatso, my paintings are
built for comfort, not for speed."
-Amy Sillman
3 comments:
Have always been a big fan. I think I have only seen 5 to 10 of her paintings in person but was really impressed with the surface and tension. I went back watched the James Kalm video of her show from a year ago. What aspects of her work do you like?
Great post!
Thanks Sheri!
@Brian- I like Sillman's work because she is a Painter!
She uses paint on canvas. The work isn't slick and puts a contemporary spin on straight abstraction. When the figurative elements are added the work approaches the same black comedy feel that Guston just nails. And of course formally I love her color combinations. She combines a lot of opposites which is important to me---fast/ slow, thick/ thin, figure/ abstraction etc.
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