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Property from an Important European Collector PHILIP TAAFFE (b. 1955) RELIQUARY oil and mixed med...

Currency:USD Category:Everything Else / Other Start Price:NA Estimated At:60,000.00 - 80,000.00 USD
Property from an Important European Collector PHILIP TAAFFE (b. 1955) RELIQUARY oil and mixed med...
Property from an Important European Collector
PHILIP TAAFFE
(b. 1955)
RELIQUARY
oil and mixed media on canvas
112 x 56 in. (284.5 x 142.2 cm)
executed in 1996 <p>PROVENANCE
Max Hetzler Galerie, BERLIN
The diffracted colors are given mass by a scale demanding the sweep of eye that scans the whole like a vast page. Detail for detail, the paintings are a swim through a primordial other-world: the backdrop to an action. The mind reels as the peripheral eye is forever assessing the impact of these quiet lines and shocking colors. When I consider Philip Taaffe's recent paintings, a sinister thread propels me beyond any decorative intrigue. Why, I ask myself, are these paintings familiar? Seductive rhythms prevail, elements repeat, waves of color counterpoint the stillness of line. They make me think about feathers... not so much any particular feather as plumage. Recognizable shapes abound: plants, animals and skulls, each a silhouette of a reality. They seem from a time before, or a time yet to be. Yet they are each one part of the conundrum, as the painter himself is part of it, this dialogue with the lizard, the fly and the seaweed that survives within each of us.
Charles Wehrenberg, PHILIP TAAFFE, exh. cat., Gagosian Gallery, 2000
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