Seascape with Frieze of Girls

In his 1985 painting Seascape with Frieze of Girls, the tableaux of naked women takes as its starting point one of the most enduring themes in classical art, updated for a Minimalist and Pop aesthetic. This large canvas is tantalizing without being titillating, showing just enough of the female figure whilst leaving the rest to the imagination. In addition to its visual clarity, the painting also illustrates Wesley’s use of repetition with its frieze of three nudes unfolding across the canvas’ surface, both static and dancing, like the endlessly multiplying brooms in the Walt Disney film Fantasia.

An early example of Wesley’s unique painting style, this work upends the conventions of the comic strip. Just like his Pop predecessors Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein, Wesley aims to depict the world as he sees it and his aesthetic and artistic process draws attention to his close relationships with Minimalist artists such as Donald Judd or Dan Flavin. However, despite their friendships, Wesley developed a language of his own, translating it into a possible reality and then via painting, eliminates the seams from the cutout materials often sourced from the pages of a book or a newspaper. Wesley leaves no areas for interpretation, and in the process, deletes the distinction between Surrealism, Minimalism and Pop-Art.