Achrome, 1959 – 1960

About the Work

Regardless of what the title of the work claims, ‘Achrome’ is not ‘colourless’. It is not the white of modernism’s ‘purist’ current. It stands for direct, immediate materiality. Early modern art’s square and grid have been deliberately quoted in the raster of the canvas sections. Yet the elegance of modernism is confronted with an unevenly handcrafted material foreign to art. We owe everything we recognise as ‘painting’ to the material’s drying and ageing process. The artist – in the sense of the work’s originator – has all but withdrawn in favour of an artistic concept that celebrates the beauty of happenstance.