(De)Composition A & B

Each 14”x17” (Framed 21”x24”) Archival Inkjet on Somerset Velvet

(De)Composition A, 1920 and (De)Composition B, 1920 are the result of disassembling the first of Piet Mondrianʼs iconic grid paintings. As if unrolling the painting, the rectilinear forms are systematically laid on a flat plane – disentangled from their internally stable compositional structure. If Mondrianʼs geometric abstraction held a “naive faith in future” (Clement Greenberg) or represented “Machine Age age dreams of a utopian future” (Robert Rosenblum/Mel Bochner) then these images are a symbolic dissection of that future – a reconfiguring, dissension, and intervention upon it.

These pieces are part of larger body of work concerned with ideas of often paradoxical quest for paradise, utopia and contentment and the frequent failure to achieve such states.