Minimal Pop

Traywick Gallery, Berkeley, California
April 15 - May 14, 2000

untitled (rothko painting)

60" x 48" x 2"; cotton, fake fur, felt and thread, wood stretcher bars; 1999

Untitled (rothko painting), with it's shimmering colors and loaded materials, mines the color fields of rothko and the associations inherent in minimalism and POP. This piece crosses disciplines. Evoking a painting without using paint, minimalism without being hard-edged and POP without using consumerist brand name items.

The rothko drawings (#1-21) draw upon the idea of rothko's transcendent square/doorway that figures so prominently in his extensive body of work. Rothko was one of the first to try out alternative materials - testing out acrylics that had just entered the marketplace. In these drawings - I utilize the magical properties infused in office supplies. They are our saviours re: list-making and time efficiency in a more and more clogged society. Here the lowly post-its, instead of reminding a worker about a "banal" meeting or deadline, shoots for the sublime.

Using the strategies of minimalism and POP - these simple multilayered works ride in THE juncture of minimalism and POP where the combinations of the materials and the form with the format create the meaning.