Lupinus Culcidae

Materials: mixed media on canvas. Dimensions: 197 × 168.5 cm.
b. 1955 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, US; lives and works in New York City and West Cornwall, Connecticut, US.
Lender: evn collection, Maria Enzersdorf, Austria

Philip Taaffe’s large, portrait-format panel painting, Lupinus Culcidae, consists of several overlapping opaque layers. Repeating leaf shapes are visible, printed in simple, warm shades of green. Occasional flashes of blue and orange stripes break up the earthy color spectrum. Abstract and non-representational, the shapes are nevertheless not ornamental. For each phase of his work, the artist has developed specific working processes and spatial settings. (1) (2) In his 10,000-square-meter studio in New York in the 1990s, Taaffe worked with painting supports on the floor (3). The large formats—some up to 480 cm wide—were meticulously mapped out. Philip Taaffe works intensively with color and painting grounds, experimental printing techniques, and motifs from various fields such as botany. He thus creates imagery that generates an unparalleled sense of depth. Philip Taaffe says of his role model Mark Rothko that he had a way of using color: the materiality of the work, the scale, the scratching into the surface, the labor, the translucence of the canvas fabric, drops running in the wrong direction. Rothko approached his work with an extraordinary meticulousness. Taaffe works with a similar level of care. His sensitivity in working with surfaces creates a “habitable” pictorial experience for viewers (4).

Mona Jas

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