Lot 47: SÉRAPHINE PICK Easy Living Study

Name: SÉRAPHINE PICK Easy Living Study
Brand: Webb’s – Specialist Auctioneers’
SKU: 7194e71a69
Price: 8000 NZD

Est: $12,000 NZD - $15,000 NZDSold:

Webb’s – Specialist Auctioneers’Auckland, New ZealandAugust 09, 2021

Item Overview

Description

Séraphine Pick

Easy Living Study

2015

acrylic on canvas

signed S PICK and dated 15 in brushpoint lower right

550 x 700mm

PROVENANCE

Private collection, Wellington.

Séraphine Pick – Are They Searching For The Same Things?

Essay by NEIL TALBOT

Séraphine Pick has maintained an excellent painting career for decades. Her paintings are things of wonder, from her earlier dreamscape-surrealist work, to the lighter, more painterly work of the 2010s and 2020s. A consistent thread through her work of all eras, is its quality, and the clear dedication Pick has brought to realising great painting. Seeing a significant grouping of Pick’s work from across the decades offers an intriguing glimpse into the mind and working methods of the artist. This group of three works features one from the 1990s and two from the mid 2010s, presenting an insightful precis of her overall practice.

The earlier work in this selection is Where Have You Been (Lot 49), an oil painting from 1999. The artists’ works from this era have proved highly desirable to collectors and institutions, particularly in recent years. The work is highly detailed, filled with the symbolic and spectral imagery that has made Pick’s work of this era so distinctive and sought after. The figure of a woman is situated in the lower right of the image, engaged in some contemplative ritual or meditation, her back to the viewer. Her outstretched hand holds a small, potted cactus. A spectre, seemingly emanating from the woman stares out at the viewer. Other smaller figures are in view – some apparition-like, others more corporeal. The image is fully immersed in the dream-like symbolism of the artists’ work from this period.

Pick’s more recent work has featured a lyrical treatment of paint, with large areas of translucent washes, paint runs, and hints of raw canvas complimenting figures and landscapes. These paintings are more immediate, less laborious, exploring the beauty of light marks on a canvas. Complex layers, hand painted and generative allow space for a sincere love of painting to enter the visual conversation. In this one can see the ways in which the artist has combined intuitive approaches to paint with more analytical decision making to arrive at resolved paintings that are immensely satisfying to view. These paintings also appear to have drawn on sourced imagery, rather than images from the artists’ own psyche and personal experience.

The two works of this later era included for discussion here were produced between 2013 and 2015. These paintings shift away from the symbolic dreamscapes of her earlier works, and into territory that is, at a glance, more convivial. Yet the content is far from superficial, showing aspects of contemporary human experience that are psychologically complex and nuanced. The two paintings each show an individual figure, one inebriated and vulnerable, the other blissful or contemplative. Blue Hand (Lot 48) is from Pick’s 2013/2014 painting series, ‘Wankered’, which made use of internet sourced images of inebriated people in compromised or funny positions. This painting, an oil on linen work from 2013, shows a drunk woman passed out on a public bench. Easy Living Study (Lot 47) is an acrylic on canvas work from 2015. Showing an enraptured hippie in a sun-drenched field of flowers, this work was the precursor to one of Pick’s most memorable paintings in recent years, the titular work from her Easy Living series.

These more recent works are drawn from collective imagery – photos people have put on the internet for some purpose, an intriguing contemporary human behavioural phenomenon. Pick has utilised these images as source material for beautifully rendered, evocative paintings. Easy Living Study in particular makes use of a lighter, more radiant palette. It has an almost religious or psychedelic aspect and glorious paint application. Blue Hand is darker in content and palette, yet its gestural application of paint is similarly exceptional. Collectively, these works read as a fascinating cross section of visual culture across a number of decades, adding further depth to Pick’s extraordinary career output.

In 2015, a major show of Pick’s work titled White Noise was shown at The Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt. A book was launched in conjunction with the show, and it featured an essay by Sian van Dyk’s titled, Everything Old is New Again¹. Van Dyck explored Pick’s painting against the backdrop of the 21st Century’s proliferation of digital culture, and made some astute observations about the artist and her practice. “What my subject choice means is initially unconscious, but becomes conscious because people are always asking me what it’s about,” van Dyck quotes Pick, revealing how an artist’s understanding of an artwork can continue to develop after its completion. Van Dyk, looking at overarching themes in image content, asked, “What are the connections between festival goers at Woodstock and today’s teenagers who operate in a world of social media? Are they searching for the same things?” It may be that the utopia an earlier generation sought in counterculture and psychedelics, today’s youth looks for in the ever-shifting sands of technological development and internet memes. Whatever the case, Pick has found masterful means to transform this content into brilliant, absorbing painting.

1 White Noise, 2015. The Dowse Art Museum (Book).

Dimensions

550 x 700mm

Artist or Maker

Seraphine Pick

Medium

acrylic on canvas

Provenance

Private collection, Wellington.

Payment & Shipping

Payment

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COLLECTION
Purchases are to be taken away at the buyer's expense immediately after the sale once payment in full has been made. If this is not done, Mosgreen-Webb's will not be responsible if the lot is lost stolen damaged or destroyed. Any payment by cheque will not be considered paid until the payment has cleared. Any items not collected within seven days of the auction may be subject to a storage and insurance fee. A receipted invoice must be produced prior to delivery of any lot.

Auction Details

Works of Art

Webb’s – Specialist Auctioneers’

August 09, 2021, 06:30 PM NZST

33a Normanby Rd Mt Eden, Auckland, 1024, NZ

Explore This Auction

Terms

Buyer's Premium

17.5%

Bidding Increments

From:	To:	Increment:
$0	$499	$20
$500	$999	$50
$1,000	$1,999	$100
$2,000	$4,999	$200
$5,000	$9,999	$500
$10,000	$19,999	$1,000
$20,000	$49,999	$2,000
$50,000	$99,999	$5,000
$100,000	$199,999	$10,000
$200,000	$499,999	$20,000
$500,000+		$50,000

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