1548 Views
41
View In My Room
Painting, Acrylic on Wood
Size: 30 W x 40 H x 1.7 D in
Ships in a Crate
1548 Views
41
Featured in One to Watch
Artist featured in a collection
Original Artwork Sold This artwork was selected as one of three silver award winners in the inaugural Art Forward contest from a pool of close to 1,000 submissions. The work was given a short review by Maria Medua, Director, Artist Gallery, SFMOMA: Silver—Sam Tudyk, “Bangkok Billboard,” Acrylic and paper, 40 x 30 in. The billboard is a great subject matter for a painter -- reflexive, providing a picture within a picture, and bringing to mind everything from mass media to the contrast between high and low art. Tudyk chooses a fairly generous scale of 40 inches tall to emphasize sweeping vertical lines that form a complex system of trusses arising from an overgrown light yellow field. The billboard is a grid of sumptuous colored rectangles, including one in an unforgettable indigo blue. Beautiful fracture lines draw attention to the surface, aging it, setting it in time, and giving it a past as well as a present existence that is palpable. The no-nonsense title, “Bangkok Billboard,” signals that the work should be read formally not narratively. It doesn’t much matter that the structure is in Thailand, but its name does have a nice alliteration. With 14 rectangles across and six down, the billboard offers 84 miniature paintings that could be inspired by everything from the minimalism of Robert Ryman to the pop culture collages of Robert Rauschenberg. However, “Billboard” shares more in common with pieces by Jasper Johns. A complicated, overwrought old framework holds something up before us. Seven lamps are perched at the top of the sign. These cast curious corresponding shadows downward. The source of light is vague. We very quickly become aware of the job diagonals do. In the foreground, a roughed out base of ochre partially obscures the bottom of the scaffolding. The background is a grey-blue and indeterminate sky. While billboards are a form of commercial art used by advertisers, “Bangkok Billboard” sells no product. Instead it offers us a matrix of colors -- whites, greys, and umber, the colors of underpainting. Traditionally, grids are used as a way to manage complexity. The artist assigns visual information to quadrants that can be tackled one by one and eventually come together as a whole to depict something. Many artists, including Jasper Johns have deconstructed the picture plane and played with how the grid and the diagonal can interact without creating perspectival representation. “Billboard” has fun with a lot of these ideas. Portrayed at an angle, and propped up on a network of brown lines, the image can be read as an object in three dimensional space. However, there is no need to stop there, when the shapes are so pleasing, the colors wonderful and the verticals that directs our gaze upward are so satisfying. –Maria Medua, Director, Artist Gallery, SFMOMA
Acrylic on Wood
One-of-a-kind Artwork
30 W x 40 H x 1.7 D in
Not Framed
Not applicable
Ships in a Crate
Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.
Ships in a wooden crate for additional protection of heavy or oversized artworks. Artists are responsible for packaging and adhering to Saatchi Art’s packaging guidelines.
United States.
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Graphic structures, obscured messages, unconventional language, and memories often come into play in the creation of my artwork. Billboards and materials of correspondence frequently act as containers for those ideas. To see more artwork, please also visit my personal website, . Some artworks shown but not listed for sale are available through Reynolds Gallery in Richmond, Virginia: Please give them a call, they are fine people! Thank you for your interest in my work.
Featured in Saatchi Art's curated series, One To Watch
Artist featured by Saatchi Art in a collection
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