Lot 282: DAVID RATCLIFF

DAVID RATCLIFF B. 1970 BONGS signed, titled and dated June 2006 Los Angeles on the overlap acrylic on canvas 223.5 by 259.1cm.; 87 3/4 by 102in.

Exhibition Catalogue, London, Saatchi Gallery, Abstract America: New Painting and Sculpture, 2009-2010, pp. 358-359, illustrated in colour

Team Gallery, New York

David Ratcliff's dynamic and arresting paintings are the products of a multi-layered and a highly time consuming process. Beginning with the assemblage of collages created out of images that the artist sources from a number of diverse sources, Ratcliff then uses the primary construction to generate elaborately complex stencils which he then lays down on painted canvas. As the artist spray paints a second colour over the stencil covered canvas, the stencil starts to dissolve and the colour of the foreground settles into that of the background. The two distinct colours set against one another result in a hallucinatory image that pulses with an undercurrent of violence and chaos; the sourced images coming together to form an unflattering portrait of contemporary society.