Beschreibung:

Julian Schnabel Sharon Stone 2000 oil, ceramic plates, Bondo on wood 82 x 60 x 6 in. (208.3 x 152.4 x 15.2 cm.) Inscribed "To Sharon From Julian 2000" on the reverse.
Provenance Collection of Sharon Stone Acquired from the above by the present owner Catalogue Essay Julian Schnabel’s debut exhibition at Mary Boone Gallery in 1979 made a monumental impact on the New York art scene, allowing him a second show in the same year where his broken-plate paintings were unveiled. These Neo-Expressionist chaotic works are comprised of Bondo, an adhesive putty, and heavy rough porcelain shards that contemporaneously generate a very rugged and relentless textured canvas. Schnabel is interested in pushing the boundaries of painting by utilizing very unsympathetic materials more normally associated with sculpture and craft. “That’s why I used plates, why I cut holes in the painting,” he wrote, “I used Egyptian cotton or I used sails or whatever. I was trying to make a painting that I hadn’t seen before.” (Julian Schnabel in D. Moos, Julian Schnabel Art and Film, Art Gallery of Ontario, 2010, p. 15). Schnabel’s time spent in Barcelona, experiencing the unique and intricate multi-media architecture of Antonio Gaudí, triggered his interest in these unconventional painting materials like tile and crockery. The diversely patterned shards, embedded in the earthy colored Bondo, create an almost archaeological relief surface that seems to undulate and breath—as though the plates had, just moments ago, broken apart with a resonating impact on the picture surface. The sitter, Sharon Stone, is surrounded by a kaleidoscope of both lush reds and dangerously rough edges. Her famed features are instantly recognizable as Schnabel depicts her ice blue eyes, soft blonde hair, and pragmatic stance. Her rendering in broken objects speaks to her ferocious character. The portraits painted upon these dense terrains are often of Schnabel’s friends and family; he explains that “the way you end up knowing them [the subject] is very intimate, because you are looking at them and you’re kind of peeling down the layers. I paint what I see, and there’s no lying in those paintings. So what you get to see, maybe somebody is not always happy with what they see where I paint somebody’s vulnerability...There’s a character, I mean I see people’s character. I’m analyzing what makes them up. I mean, in a way, I’m deconstructing. Deconstructing them and then I’m putting them back together.” (Ibid., p. 14). Read More