.jpg?w=1)
拍品专文
‘I think of these signs as the jewellery of our downtown neighbourhoods. The signs I choose to paint have to have some history and a particular attitude- it’s hard to define exactly what it is, but there has to be something compelling about the subject for me. As I work on my painting, which is my own form of communication, I’m also commenting on the sign maker’s work. I’m building on it.’
(R. Cottingham, Plus One Gallery, https://www.plusonegallery.com/Artist-Info.cfm?ArtistsID=463 [accessed 15th August 2014]).
Although he is known for his photo-realistic depictions of signs, storefront marquees and letter forms, meticulously composed paintings of vintage Americana, Robert Cottingham does not consider himself a photorealist artist. His imagery, while derived from the photographs he takes, does not merely replicate, but rather expands upon the photographic image. Cottingham himself stated: ‘I don’t care about being realistic. In other words, I don’t put in little rust spots or bolts that show. I’m not looking for that kind of realism. I’m just using the subjects as the stepping-off points to compose the painting’ (R. Cottingham, quoted in Pop Prints, exh. cat., Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 1978). Here within the present work Hi, Cottingham’s primary concerns are entrenched in the formal. Cottingham has tightly cropped the image, the sign filling almost the entire frame, and in so doing emphasised the sharply converging verticals of the shop fascia; creating an elegantly hieratic sense of geometry. Aesthetically slick, Hi’s flawless surfaces presents the viewer with an untouchable and pristine crystallized depiction of the everyday.
(R. Cottingham, Plus One Gallery, https://www.plusonegallery.com/Artist-Info.cfm?ArtistsID=463 [accessed 15th August 2014]).
Although he is known for his photo-realistic depictions of signs, storefront marquees and letter forms, meticulously composed paintings of vintage Americana, Robert Cottingham does not consider himself a photorealist artist. His imagery, while derived from the photographs he takes, does not merely replicate, but rather expands upon the photographic image. Cottingham himself stated: ‘I don’t care about being realistic. In other words, I don’t put in little rust spots or bolts that show. I’m not looking for that kind of realism. I’m just using the subjects as the stepping-off points to compose the painting’ (R. Cottingham, quoted in Pop Prints, exh. cat., Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool, 1978). Here within the present work Hi, Cottingham’s primary concerns are entrenched in the formal. Cottingham has tightly cropped the image, the sign filling almost the entire frame, and in so doing emphasised the sharply converging verticals of the shop fascia; creating an elegantly hieratic sense of geometry. Aesthetically slick, Hi’s flawless surfaces presents the viewer with an untouchable and pristine crystallized depiction of the everyday.