(click image for more details)Trevor, 2008
oil on canvas
80cm x 70cm
The Sea at Night, 2006
80cm x 70cm
Andy Denzler's figurative paintings have evolved only in the last few years after a long period exploring the possibilities of Abstraction. Starting with his 'American Paintings' series (2005) Denzler has since been involved in an examination of imagery drawn from various sectors of popular culture. Despite this seemingly dramatic shift between the abstract and figurative, what links the two bodies of work is the artist's continued dialogue with art history and, more specifically, the history of painting.
Whilst the photographic/cinematic origins of many of Denzler's paintings are explicit, he renders them in a distinctly gestural style, lending them the appearance of a long photographic exposure or fast movie camera pan. His subjects are reduced to
a blurred set of generic features, positions and clothing, thus echoing the reductive tendency present in much mainstream film and advertising, one that seeks to erase any imperfection or difference that the viewer may find unappealing. Likewise, the 'landscapes' that his subjects inhabit are most often reduced to a series of horizontal and vertical planes of muted colour. His work questions the surety of perception, both through its combination of appropriation and painterly technique as well as its playing with notions of memory and observation.
Paul Stone, 2008
find out more about this artist
find out more about Paul Stone
