Michael Venezia, MV NY #710, 1970

1970

Medium

Aluminum powder on paper

Dimensions

66.2 × 50.9 cm

Status

In Gallery Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-156098

Michael Venezia's spray paintings on paper, created in the early 1970s, are among the artist's rare works on paper and have a more experimental character than his canvases. Venezia revolutionized the application of paint with his spray paintings by mixing acrylic emulsion with metal pigments and applying them to the canvas using an industrial spray gun. Beyond their visual quality, the works on paper represent an investigation of the spray process, the angle of impact, the duration of spraying and the formation of form, in order to analyze the irrationality and mutability of this application of paint. In the irregular structures Venezia explores the theme of repetition and proportionality of the spray mark to each other. At the center of these experiments is the imitation, or instinctive reproduction, of an always identical spray technique on the same sheet. In "MV NY #710", one silver spray stroke stretches across the paper, starting from the right edge of the picture. Venezia applies pencil lines for his experimental arrangements, which serve him as guide and orientation lines for the processing with the spray gun.