Bernard Frize

OBIAS, 2020

• Bernard Frize (°1949, Frankrijk)
• acrylic and resin on canvas
• 173 x 173cm

‘I don’t think in terms of vision or perspective. I think in terms of the action of painting.’

Executed in 2020, Obias exemplifies Bernard Frize’s colourful, dynamic visual language, consisting of overlapping, tessellated brushstrokes, merging to form a lattice-like composition. Frize takes a unique stance to painting, distancing himself as the object-maker from his works as well as the process of making itself, and instead prioritising the end-result of the painting. Working methodically on a flat surface using thin, diluted acrylic resin, the final composition only reveals itself once the work is completed; the colours and forms are not pre-determined, rather they become apparent as they emerge from the surface of the canvas; ‘Let’s say that the painting is produced automatically, with minimal intervention from me.’ He strictly adheres to a series of self-made rules, eliminating any creative interference, and the resultant composition brings together a sense of both order and disorder, as well as an iridescent illusion of depth on the surface of the canvas.

Born in Saint-Mandé, France in 1949, Frize studied at the École des beaux-Arts. In 2019, his oeuvre was the subject of a mid-career retrospective, Bernard Frize, Without Remorse at Centre Pompidou, and works are included in more than 45 worldwide public collections and institutions, including the Tate Gallery, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Kunstmuseums in Basel and Zurich.