Accession Code: wu0849 Title: Deconstructing Seurat (turquoise green) Date completed: 2004 Medium: Print Material: Screenprint Height (mm): 630 Width (mm): 935 Depth (mm): n/a Inscription: n/a Location Name: Social Sciences Location Description: Faculty of Social Sciences Location Floor:1

 

This pair of screenprints forms a diptych, showing side by side the two fundamental structural elements of Seurat's painting 'Bathers at Asnières' (1884) in the National Gallery, London. Using digital technology, Craig-Martin has separated the background - the river, riverbank and distant landscape - from the group of figures who occupy it. He also transposed the colours into his own characteristically bright palette without any tonal values. In this way he seeks to offer the viewer a new way of seeing and experiencing a familiar image, which is a regular theme in his paintings, sculptures and wall drawings.

Other version of this work were published with different colour schemes; the artist also made two pairs of screen prints 'deconstructing' one of his favourite historic paintings 'The Flagellation' by Piero della Francesca.