Untitled (Face 688)

Executed in 2007, Untitled (Face 688) is a vibrant, polychromatic mask painting by Mark Grotjahn. Rich with expressive, almost graffiti-type radial lines, the work contains a wealth of striated almond shape eyes and savage teeth. The materials employed have an innate rawness, distressed corrugated cardboard giving way to unprimed linen. Like the European "matire" works of the 1940s and 50s, Untitled (Face 688) is less a painting than a relief, the surface appearing textured and invitingly tactile. As Robert Storr has eloquently described, 'on top of this already dynamic surface, the artist applies heavy impasto with a combination of brush and palette knife that causes colours to traverse, tailgate, and smear into each other, resulting in a constant chromatic cackle as complementary and secondary contrasts spark and flare like chain reaction fireworks' (R. Storr, 'LA Push-Pull/Po-Mo-Stop-Go', Mark Grotjahn, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, London, 2009, p. 7).