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拍品專文
Coming from David Ostrowski’s celebrated F (Ferhlermalerei) series, F (Val Kilmer) uses paint, dirt and adhesive foil to create a textural and visually engaging appearance. The artist has applied splatters of paint in red, white and blue, punctured staples and smudged black paint across the picture plane, leaving much of the canvas exposed. The focus is on the creation of the work, the gathering of materials, the spontaneous mark-making – Ostrowski has allowed himself total creative freedom, resulting in a work which evidences the process of its making in its ultimate presentation. Throughout his oeuvre, Ostrowski plays with the idea of ‘de-skilling’ painting, purposefully moving away from his early figurative style, and rejecting a compositional plan or strategy, in the hopes that the resulting piece will surprise the viewer and, ideally, the artist himself.
Ostrowski’s process-driven practice alludes to his days as a student under Albert Oehlen in his non-traditional engagement with painting, and marks him out as a forerunner in a flourishing group of similar process-based artists. Blaring music in his studio, Ostrowski attempts to distract his brain and create a free and uncontrolled state in which his reductive abstract canvases are produced. The execution becomes almost automatic and instinctual, creating unexpected marks and forms upon the surface.
Through his use of diverse materials, such as varnish, dirt and foil in this piece, Ostrowski exhibits his conviction that everyday materials are less laden with information, enabling him to produce unmediated forms from smudges and scratches. The speed with which varnish dries provides a necessary limitation to the artist, and means the work cannot be overthought or re-done. Ostrowski revels in the aspect of chance; this is the life-force of the work and gives it a surprising quality, as shown in the abstract paint marks and the diagonal scratch across the canvas. Relishing in this freedom, he commented, ‘for me, the whole world and life itself is a mistake, but the world still has some beautiful corners and something can also be fun!’ (D. Ostrowski, interviewed by A. Bacon, The Brooklyn Rail http:/www.brooklynrail.org/2014/06/art/think-harder-an-exchange-between-david-ostrowski-and-alex-bacon [accessed 18th July 2014]). In F (Val Kilmer), Ostrowski has produced a work that seeks pleasure in spontaneity and beauty in error.
Ostrowski’s process-driven practice alludes to his days as a student under Albert Oehlen in his non-traditional engagement with painting, and marks him out as a forerunner in a flourishing group of similar process-based artists. Blaring music in his studio, Ostrowski attempts to distract his brain and create a free and uncontrolled state in which his reductive abstract canvases are produced. The execution becomes almost automatic and instinctual, creating unexpected marks and forms upon the surface.
Through his use of diverse materials, such as varnish, dirt and foil in this piece, Ostrowski exhibits his conviction that everyday materials are less laden with information, enabling him to produce unmediated forms from smudges and scratches. The speed with which varnish dries provides a necessary limitation to the artist, and means the work cannot be overthought or re-done. Ostrowski revels in the aspect of chance; this is the life-force of the work and gives it a surprising quality, as shown in the abstract paint marks and the diagonal scratch across the canvas. Relishing in this freedom, he commented, ‘for me, the whole world and life itself is a mistake, but the world still has some beautiful corners and something can also be fun!’ (D. Ostrowski, interviewed by A. Bacon, The Brooklyn Rail http:/www.brooklynrail.org/2014/06/art/think-harder-an-exchange-between-david-ostrowski-and-alex-bacon [accessed 18th July 2014]). In F (Val Kilmer), Ostrowski has produced a work that seeks pleasure in spontaneity and beauty in error.