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Lot Essay
“My paintings consist of forms and gaps. I build the forms by cutting shaped MDF stretcher panels and covering them with raw canvas.
Assembled and bolted together, the three-dimensional forms visually flatten out and become the compositional elements of a two-dimensional picture plane. The gaps between the forms subsequently appear as lines within a geometric pictorial composition. My paintings thoroughly integrate pictorial space with that of the object. Each shape within the composition is the shape it is, but it also depicts the shape it is. Each composition’s linear aspects—the edges of the forms—purposely both create and disturb pictorial perspective. I use raw canvas to focus attention on these shifting formal and conceptual relationships” (W. Kahn, “Stills,” https://remapkm.org/4/galleries/galerie-eva-presenhuber-zurich/ [accessed, 10 October 2014]).
Wyatt Kahn’s Peg from 2012 is a dynamic work that is part painting, part sculpture. Reminiscent of a jigsaw-puzzle with its composition of raw canvas and panel, the work instantly recalls the language of minimalist abstraction by the likes of Jan Schoonhoven and Frank Stella. Drawing on the interplay of painting and sculpture, the forms and surfaces here also evoke elements of architecture and figuration. In Peg, the constructed facets of monochromatic planes create a bold sense of movement and three-dimensionality. Additionally, the negative space between stretchers reveals its presence just as forcefully—with the exposed wall becoming part of the work itself. In short, Peg is a work that brilliantly conveys ideas and tensions between surface, structure and spatial conception.
Assembled and bolted together, the three-dimensional forms visually flatten out and become the compositional elements of a two-dimensional picture plane. The gaps between the forms subsequently appear as lines within a geometric pictorial composition. My paintings thoroughly integrate pictorial space with that of the object. Each shape within the composition is the shape it is, but it also depicts the shape it is. Each composition’s linear aspects—the edges of the forms—purposely both create and disturb pictorial perspective. I use raw canvas to focus attention on these shifting formal and conceptual relationships” (W. Kahn, “Stills,” https://remapkm.org/4/galleries/galerie-eva-presenhuber-zurich/ [accessed, 10 October 2014]).
Wyatt Kahn’s Peg from 2012 is a dynamic work that is part painting, part sculpture. Reminiscent of a jigsaw-puzzle with its composition of raw canvas and panel, the work instantly recalls the language of minimalist abstraction by the likes of Jan Schoonhoven and Frank Stella. Drawing on the interplay of painting and sculpture, the forms and surfaces here also evoke elements of architecture and figuration. In Peg, the constructed facets of monochromatic planes create a bold sense of movement and three-dimensionality. Additionally, the negative space between stretchers reveals its presence just as forcefully—with the exposed wall becoming part of the work itself. In short, Peg is a work that brilliantly conveys ideas and tensions between surface, structure and spatial conception.