Untitled (Multicolor Two Wings Butterfly White Background 667)

Grotjahn combines varying schemes of one-point perspective-used since the Renaissance to produce the illusion of depth on a flat surface-to create his mesmerizing abstractions. By upending the horizon line in these works to form vertical "butterflies," Grotjahn's paintings seem to float free of their perspectival grounding. In this way, the paintings oscillate between geometric abstraction and spatial illusion. And while the works appear at first glance to be rigidly formal and graphic, their surfaces are often layered over underpaintings, sometimes creating tonal shifts of color and textured
surfaces that reveal the process of the works' own making.
H. Z. Jacobson, Disruption, exh. cat., Mark Grotjahn, Aspen Art Museum, 2012, p. 56.