Buddy Blog

JERED SPRECHER

Memory Device Memory Device, 46" x 36", oil on canvas, 2013.

 

Memory Device Memory Device has a very technological feel to it. Most of Sprecher's work has a digital and it is the processes behind his work that gives us that feeling.  The strokes he uses for his background colors align with the idea of components or hardware in a computer.

            It is an interesting contrast between the representational image of the bird and the conceptuality behind making the brush strokes to imitate. It's also interesting the careful detail Sprecher used in creating a boarder around the image of the bird, but he deconstructed it with aggressive marks coming from all directions.

            Multiple themes seem to be happening such as the idea of nature verses a digital age. There is a sort of melancholy tone to this piece when it is represented in this fashion.

Color choice in Memory Device Memory Device is set as a gradient that gradates warm and cool colors; this evokes a feeling of cohesiveness in the piece. 

Robert Motherwell

Gesture 1, color, sugarlift, aquatint, 1976

 

Motherwell's piece is very indicative of process and materials. Simply naming it Gesture 1 creates a narrative of the artist's gesture; the big centralized gesture is then mimicked be small outlining gestures, which truly makes this piece non representational. It makes the viewer wonder if this was a full body gesture of something delicately done with simple hand gestures and techniques.

There also seems to be tension in this piece with the decision to make the composition this cropped piece of something that was obviously larger.

Comparatively the styles of paintings are very similar; both are very gestural.  And have an ethereal unreal feel to them. The colors of Gesture 1 are especially representative of this because of the earth dark tones.  Delicate detail is in both paintings as well. These details are very different between the paintings; Sprecher's detail is in emphasizing the birds with color and texture while Motherwell's painting emphasizes on composition and small splatter marks within the piece.