Dresses (YSL autumn/winter 1966) (2020)

Silke Otto-Knapp
Dresses (YSL autumn/winter 1966)
2020
31.5'' × 23.62'' (80 cm × 60 cm)
silkscreen
edition of 20 + 3AP
 
Silke Otto-Knapp is best known for her watercolour paintings onto canvas, which juxtapose luminosity with flatness. Predominantly addressing the practice of painting via concerns with the physicality of paint and surface, Otto-Knapp's paintings marry abstraction with figuration. All are deployed with a rigorous signature method – repeatedly applying washes that are then partially removed to build diaphanous forms.

Typically working from photographic images, Dresses (YSL autumn/winter 1966), is based on found images of YSL's iconic, Tom Wesselmann inspired, shift dress. Produced in Otto-Knapp's signature style, masterfully captured in this silkscreen, the bodies of the two models flicker in and out of view from behind the dominance of the dress; subjects caught in a tension between artifice and reality, both manifest and blurred.

Silke Otto-Knapp (b.1970, Osnabrück). Recent solo exhibitions include; Galerie Buchholz, Berlin (2020), The Renaissance Society, Chicago (2020), Regen Projects, Los Angeles (2019), Taka Ishii, Tokyo (2018), Galleri Ismene, Trodheim (2018), Regen Projects, Los Angeles (with Lari Pittman) (2017), Taylor Macklin, Zurich (2017), Midway Contemporary, Minneapolis (2017).