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While the analysis of painting has been an ongoing concern for Avery Singer since 2010, she also experiments and explores imaging processes. Her motifs are inspired by the seemingly infinite flood of images on the Internet. She also processes everyday occurrences and realities in her paintings and repeatedly finds inspiration in literature. With the help of the graphic program SketchUp, which is used for 3-D modeling in architecture, Avery Singer constructs complex spatial compositions filled with abstracted figures and objects. In the course of this process, the motifs are translated into geometric forms and reduced to simple elements: hair becomes zigzag lines, eyebrows straighten, arms turn into blocks and the female bosom becomes an asymmetrical polygonal outgrowth of the body. Singer projects these computer-generated sketches onto a canvas or panel, separating the forms from each other using masking tape and creating surfaces on the canvas in a grey palette with airbrush. Through their rejection of color, these works follow the tradition of Grisaille – a style of painting that featured predominantly in medieval panel painting and the Renaissance, and was frequently used for the translation of sculptures into painting. The airbrush technique heightens the planarity of the painting surface to an extreme and contrasts with the illusionistic spatiality of the image compositions, an approach that broaches and further develops questions relating to art history and perception. As trompe-l’oeils, the large-format works open up spaces that invite the viewer to walk into them, or at least risk a look behind the canvas to see whether another space lies behind it. The planarity of the canvas is also ruptured by the form of the presentation: By allowing the paintings to float freely in the space on delicate metal cables, rather than opting for the traditional wall hanging, the artist creates a spatial constel lation in the exhibition by using the paintings themselves.
Both the physical characteristics and themes of Singer’s paintings always refer to the history of art and their own emergence, that is the stories and problems associated with the creation of art or images. Allusions to the motifs and styles of classic modernism and to post-modernist debates can be identified in her works. The question is also raised as to the impact of the shifts in meaning resulting from the conditions of digitality and virtuality on the artistic sphere today and, particularly also, the medium of painting. The insignias of the “fine arts” collide with avant-garde tropes, and parodic-autobiographical motifs constantly allude to clichés of the art world. Adopting a humorous tone, Avery Singer demonstrates rituals and social patterns and presents stereotypes of the artist, curator, collector and writer. In this context, she adopts the historical loci of art production– the studio, the art college and the institutional space – where the myth of the artist and cult of genius are fostered: How are artists made? How is art made?
The exhibition is curated by Beatrix Ruf and was realised in cooperation with Kunshalle Zürich.
They Like Avery…!
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