Lot 198: Arm, Plant, Bottles, Wood

Michele Abeles (b. 1977) Arm, Plant, Bottles, Wood signed with the artist’s initials ‘M.A’ (on a label affixed to the reverse) Archival pigment print overall: 21 x 26 5/8 in. (53.3 x 67.7 cm) sheet: 20 1/4 x 26 in. (51.5 x 66 cm.) Executed in 2011. This work is number four from an edition of five.

51.5 x 66 cm.

London, Saatchi Gallery, Out of Focus: Photography, September-November 2012, p. MA.4

The Approach, London Acquired from the above by the present owner

Michele Abeles claims that the male bodies she fragments have no greater importance than the bottles, pots, rocks, scraps of paper and flashes of bright color that she composes into enigmatic still lifes. Their presence is substantial enough to interest anyone who enjoys the tradition of the nude. Abeles is not the first to create visual puzzles where picture planes refuse to behave according to convention, and real objects have a flat, cut-out quality - but she has put the themes together in a strikingly original fashion - especially in the way in which she mocks the facile tools of computer manipulation.