Year: 2011
Medium: oil, enamel and latex on canvas
Dimensions: 150 x 114.3 cm / 59 x 45 in.
Acquired from Christie’s, 2022
Ryan Sullivan’s works require one to understand the canvas from a perspective opposite to that of conventional painting. In terms of its structure, a painting is normally formed from a series of layers: those of materials like paint over a canvas, wooden panel, or other support that serves as a starting point. The support is coated with a primer, such as gesso, followed by a charcoal or thinly painted preliminary drawing, and then comes the painting over the top. The greater the number of steps involved, the more depth and informational richness the painting acquires. From this perspective, the material approach to painting described as impasto is also a variation on the idea of a stratification of layers. The works for which Sullivan is best-known, now referred to as resin paintings, are completed by layering the painting on a large, flat surface, then peeling the painting—which by this point has become a kind of film—off the support, and then turning that film-like substance over to reveal its underside. Accordingly, the surface layer of the finished work is the earliest layer of the painting process. In conventional paintings, this layer would be hidden as the deepest stratum. Looking at this work, it is evident that the same process was used here. There is a tangible sense that the original subject of depiction has been superimposed onto the painting, with a certain degree of texture to it. Yet, the areas that resemble sprays of black, for example, have been smoothly assimilated into the background red, as if by transfer or print. What we see now must surely have been the underside during the production process. And the painting, as a film that must not have been allowed to fully set, is now slipping down and tearing as a result of its exposure to gravity, leading to the formation of countless folds. This work presents a new form of painting that deviates from the concept of support-surface-frame, which had systematically defined the art form throughout its long history.
