Lot 15: STEVEN PARRINO

Untitled
Signed and dated “Steven Parrino 1999” on the stretcher.

24 x 24 1/4 in. (61 x 61.6 cm)

acrylic on canvas

1999

Acquired directly from the artist by the present owner

<em>Untitled</em>, 1999, disrupts the perfection of a painted surface through a process of voiding the picture plane, not by creating holes, but openings. Standing in direct contrast to the artist&#8217;s renowned shaped canvases from which the linen is pulled from the stretcher, the present lot, <em>Untitled</em>, 1999, is comprised of a smooth surface, pierced in the center and left empty. The silver square canvas, instead of confronting, invites and entices the viewer to look closer and peer through the window that has been left open. The challenge is to consider what has been removed, stolen, or left out. Perhaps the canvas was once whole, with a center of silver and surface smooth and even. Or perhaps the center was occupied by a violent and abrasive sphere, which has been removed, freeing the canvas of its perceived content. <em>Untitled</em>, 1999, literally leaves room for interpretation, letting the real world penetrate the space of the viewer by granting both an entrance and an exit.

The present lot, <em>Untitled</em>, 1999, is reminiscent of the artist&#8217;s early works, which were rendered in primarily black, white, and metallic paint. His predilection for monochromatic surfaces was attributed to their ability to reveal the real, nonillusionistic properties of light. Instead of being confined by a simple picture plane, Parrino introduced, or in the case of the present lot, removed, elements into and from his paintings to challenge rationality and tradition. His deformal and deformed canvases confronted the state of painting in the late Twentieth Century. In describing his treatment of the canvas, Parrino said, &#8220;This mutant form of deformalized painting gave me a chance to speak about reality through abstract painting, to speak about life.&#8221; (Steven Parrino in Jeanne Greenberg and Bob Nickas&#8217;s Altered States: American Art in the 90s, St. Louis, <em>Forum for Contemporary Art</em>, 1995, p. 7).