Untitled (Free Capri 50.29)

In his work, Mark Grotjahn starts with art historical structures such as multipoint perspective, abstraction, and figuration. Using accumulation and repetition, he creates vibrant paintings filled with bursts of color. Grotjahn often revisits a single motif for years, the daily process in his studio shifting the direction and aesthetic of each piece. In 2001 he began the Butterfly series, his most well-known works that look like pinwheels, or off-kilter perspective drawings. He started the Capri series in 2016, experimental paintings created on the Italian island. Over time the works increased in scale and ambition, reading like landscapes of sediment. Across fields of solid colors on cardboard, Grotjahn ropes cascading lines into strata, which are frequently showered with arrays of vertical marks. In the Free Capri works, a related series, Grotjahn scrapes paint off the surfaces, then puts it back in thickened grids.