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拍品专文
‘[The computer] has freed my repressed nature. It liberates my drawing in a way I have never been able to achieve with pen or paper. It’s smooth, it’s clean, there is no friction’ (J. Elrod, quoted in D. Friis-Hansen, ‘Jeff Elrod’, Abstract Painting – Once Removed, exh. cat., Luhring Augustine, New York, 1998, pp. 58-59).
Executed in 2013, the blurred, enveloping presence of Jeff Elrod’s Echo Painting (B/W) confronts the viewer as a hyper-retinal vision of reality. The soft indistinct blotches of colour resist focus, creating a hallucinogenic, dream-like haze. Inspired by Brion Gysin’s ‘Dreamachine’, a device using oscillating light frequencies to stimulate closed eyes, Elrod’s work is informed by today’s complex relationship between the virtual reality of computers and the tangible materiality of painting. Echo Painting (B/W) represents a digital manipulation of earlier computer-generated drawings, scanned by Elrod to his device, and printed in UV ink onto canvas. In this sense, the artist blurs not only the final image but also, on a deeper level, the boundaries between the cool aesthetic of digital manipulation and the spontaneous gestural potential of handcrafted images. In Elrod’s words, ‘Computers are just an extension of the paint brush. It’s not an adversarial relationship, but it is true that at one time the art world seemed threatened by computers, but that seems so old fashioned now’ (J. Elrod, quoted in B. Powers, ‘Form Comes First – An Interview With Jeff Elrod’, in Muse, no. 38, Autumn 2014, pp. 120-125).
Echo Painting (B/W) presents an account of the visual culture in which contemporary man is immersed, one where personal exchanges and public relationships are mediated through a screen that delivers only a blurred version of reality. The smoothness of the digital image is mirrored in Elrod’s practice of what he refers to as ‘frictionless drawing’ – in many ways the contemporary successors of the Surrealists’ automatic drawing techniques. As Elrod explains, ‘This machine [the computer] has freed my repressed nature. It liberates my drawing in a way I have never been able to achieve with pen or paper. It’s smooth, it’s clean, there is no friction’ (J. Elrod, quoted in D. Friis-Hansen, ‘Jeff Elrod’, Abstract Painting – Once Removed, exh. cat., Luhring Augustine, New York, 1998, pp. 58-59).
The emphasis on the relationship between the artist and the machine positions Elrod’s practice within the legacy of Andy Warhol. As the artist explains, ‘I am an imagist and seek the super-flatness of an Andy Warhol painting, so that the viewer gets interested in what it is, not how it is painted’ (J. Elrod quoted in D. Friis-Hansen, ‘Jeff Elrod’, Abstract Painting – Once Removed, exh. cat., Luhring Augustine, New York, 1998, pp. 58-59). Furthermore, the ambivalent relationship between art and technology expressed in Echo Painting (B/W) reveals the influence of Christopher Wool. ‘I’ve always looked up to [Wool] as an artist’, Elrod has said. ‘He works almost in the reverse of how I do though. He’ll make a painting, take a photo of it, then start messing with the image and do a silkscreen of that. I usually start on the computer’ (J. Elrod quoted in B. Powers, ‘Form Comes First – An Interview With Jeff Elrod, Muse, no. 38, Autumn 2014, pp. 120-125).
Executed in 2013, the blurred, enveloping presence of Jeff Elrod’s Echo Painting (B/W) confronts the viewer as a hyper-retinal vision of reality. The soft indistinct blotches of colour resist focus, creating a hallucinogenic, dream-like haze. Inspired by Brion Gysin’s ‘Dreamachine’, a device using oscillating light frequencies to stimulate closed eyes, Elrod’s work is informed by today’s complex relationship between the virtual reality of computers and the tangible materiality of painting. Echo Painting (B/W) represents a digital manipulation of earlier computer-generated drawings, scanned by Elrod to his device, and printed in UV ink onto canvas. In this sense, the artist blurs not only the final image but also, on a deeper level, the boundaries between the cool aesthetic of digital manipulation and the spontaneous gestural potential of handcrafted images. In Elrod’s words, ‘Computers are just an extension of the paint brush. It’s not an adversarial relationship, but it is true that at one time the art world seemed threatened by computers, but that seems so old fashioned now’ (J. Elrod, quoted in B. Powers, ‘Form Comes First – An Interview With Jeff Elrod’, in Muse, no. 38, Autumn 2014, pp. 120-125).
Echo Painting (B/W) presents an account of the visual culture in which contemporary man is immersed, one where personal exchanges and public relationships are mediated through a screen that delivers only a blurred version of reality. The smoothness of the digital image is mirrored in Elrod’s practice of what he refers to as ‘frictionless drawing’ – in many ways the contemporary successors of the Surrealists’ automatic drawing techniques. As Elrod explains, ‘This machine [the computer] has freed my repressed nature. It liberates my drawing in a way I have never been able to achieve with pen or paper. It’s smooth, it’s clean, there is no friction’ (J. Elrod, quoted in D. Friis-Hansen, ‘Jeff Elrod’, Abstract Painting – Once Removed, exh. cat., Luhring Augustine, New York, 1998, pp. 58-59).
The emphasis on the relationship between the artist and the machine positions Elrod’s practice within the legacy of Andy Warhol. As the artist explains, ‘I am an imagist and seek the super-flatness of an Andy Warhol painting, so that the viewer gets interested in what it is, not how it is painted’ (J. Elrod quoted in D. Friis-Hansen, ‘Jeff Elrod’, Abstract Painting – Once Removed, exh. cat., Luhring Augustine, New York, 1998, pp. 58-59). Furthermore, the ambivalent relationship between art and technology expressed in Echo Painting (B/W) reveals the influence of Christopher Wool. ‘I’ve always looked up to [Wool] as an artist’, Elrod has said. ‘He works almost in the reverse of how I do though. He’ll make a painting, take a photo of it, then start messing with the image and do a silkscreen of that. I usually start on the computer’ (J. Elrod quoted in B. Powers, ‘Form Comes First – An Interview With Jeff Elrod, Muse, no. 38, Autumn 2014, pp. 120-125).