Sarah Sze
Afterimage, Yellow Blow Out (Painting in its Archive)
, 2018
Oil paint, acrylic paint, archival paper, UV stabilizers, adhesive, tape, ink and acrylic polymers, shellac, water based primer on wood
Panel = 215 x 268 x 14 cm (84 5/8 x 105 1/2 x 5 1/2 in)
Archive = 239 x 471 x 14 cm (94 1/8 x 185 3/8 x 5 1/2 in)
Exhibitions
Sarah Sze: Afterimage, Victoria Miro, London, UK, June 8 - July 28, 2018
Literature
Sarah Sze
Afterimage series
Victoria Miro debuts the first iteration of
Sze’s ongoing project, Afterimage, which
explores how images function as tools to
make sense of the world. Comprised of
multiple layers of paint, ink, paper, pencil,
prints, objects, and wood, this new body
of work both re-frames and refracts the
collision of images we are confronted
with daily. The title, referring to the effect
where an image continues to appear in
our vision after exposure to the original
image has ceased, also alludes to the filmic
idea of the persistence of vision, where the
afterimage fills in the gaps between film
frames, setting still images into motion in
our perception and memory.
The Afterimage series consists of paintings
integrated within and amongst a constellation
of their own archival references
and materials, revealing the processes
of their making and questioning how
meaning is ascribed to individual works of
art. Sze has completed much of this work
on site, using the gallery walls as an active
location to map, dissect, and construct images,
laying bare the generative narrative
of the studio as a live event.
The process of how images are generated,
collected, appropriated and developed
to create other images is evident in
the range of materials and paraphernalia
on the walls. The wall becomes a place
of experimentation where ideas in their
conception are mapped out to create
images. Traces of multiple image-making
mediums are layered in the work, such as
the ghost images of etching, the skidding
surface of silkscreen printing, the layering
cuts of collage, the dripping and
brushing of paint, the exposure by light
of photographs, the digital disturbance of
computer processing, and the flickering
movement of film. Circling the circumference
of the gallery, the constellations
of images shift in scale, fade, disappear
and re-emerge, creating a storyboard of
how an image is burned into memory and
persists over time.