Untitled (Suit and Smile)
- Catalog
- OW-021
- Year
- 2026
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Size
- 24 x 32 in / 61 x 81 cm
- Availability
- Original sold -- prints available
A man in a suit and tie, grinning wide, and his whole face is built out of little coloured blocks. The hair is one big dark cloud.
Catalogue note
A portrait built in two opposed languages: the hair is a single storm of dark scumbled paint, while the face is assembled from small rectangular strokes of rose, cadmium, teal and gold laid like tesserae. Heavy black contour at the brows, nose and mouth holds the two together, and the smile is drawn with every tooth accounted for. Building a face as mosaic rather than modelled flesh is a way of saying a person is made of many things at once; the dark suit and yellow tie place him somewhere formal, which leaves the grin doing something the occasion did not ask for.