Basic Information

Title: Lacquer Study 005
Artist(s): Anna Beller
Date Created: 2024
Unframed Dimensions: 16.5 x 11.5 in.
Medium: lacquer and acrylic on synthetic paper
Inventory ID: Beller-2024-05

Description

signed lower right in graphite

Lacquer Studies artist’s statement:
‘Lacquer Studies’ are not about the one object, but the process and working in series. It’s a physical generative series about rhythm and repetition and mechanics versus organic color flow. The artworks might be research and training for larger works or inspiration for computer-coded projects, still each piece has an aesthetic demand and expression in its individual nature.

The works are totally lead by intuition but following an initial minimalist system as in computer generated works: A few simple lacquer color-drops on synthetic paper get mechanically pulled into the vertical or diagonal direction and get mixed with white acrylic color-fields (open systems). The following natural color flow and mixing of smallest color particles create the finest complex and organic details. The exact result is unpredictable.

The drying process can take up to several hours in which the color particles have time to interact until frozen in their movement: An organic shape grows out of a small seed, the color drop. Sometimes the movement gets stopped mechanically by the artist or directed in different directions and something unexpected happens. It’s a game between focusing, giving up control and destruction. A white left paper space around the lacquer shapes allows them to breathe and acts as a counterpart to the strong color expression.

My digital and physical works have inspired each other in recent years, alternated or merged. ‘Lacquer Studies‘ is a purely physical series, but derives from several other series, some of digital and some of physical nature. The initial series ‘Lacquer Drops‘, ‘Lacquer Stripes’ and ‘Lacquer Traces’ on objkt.com from December 2022 – January 2023 were minimalist series in which I added my typical digital grid onto photographs. The physical parts were just the tools, the digital outputs were the final result. On the other hand the series ’4 x 3 Dots‘ (December 2022), some digital studies about color transparency has been the initiator for me to pour small ’Lacquer Drops’ on synthetic paper, starting to experiment with lacquer.
These series about colour transparencies not only connect to visions from my childhood but also to my long term inspiration Morris Louis (1912-1962), a painter who produced huge experimental color field paintings by vertically poured color stripes.

 

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