A few weeks ago I watched a lecture by Donald Baechler to
students of his alma mater, Maryland Institute College of Art. It took the form
of slides in chronological order. The early paintings were
large, an image of, say, a chair floated on an abstract ground. He used enamel
house paint on canvas and says they are pristine after thirty years, adding
that sometimes we get overcautious about longevity.
Some images
His influences were (are)
Warhol, Cy Twombly and Giotto, and I think he mentions Rodin too.
The black
line around the central image is one of his trademarks, he just likes it. Some
of the background elements such as the patterns of dots are silk-screened and
then collaged on. He doodles obsessively with markers and also draws on his
huge collection of images, selecting one that he likes and then blowing it up
in a projector to transfer to canvas. He uses ladders and long brushes for his
very large paintings.
Some recent images are representations of money, cartoon
wealth, iconic images of moneybags and dollar signs, and he notes that the
background images are unrelated, he is disrupting one thing with another thing.
Someone in the audience asks about the white outline. He explains it’s not an
outline. Rather, he overpaints the whole central area of the superimposed image
with white so that what is underneath will not interfere, then paints on top of
the white with a black outline and the white is just there because of not
painting up to the edge.
Even though the lecture was almost an hour long and split
into five parts, it was absorbing and full of interest. Previously I had found
Baechler’s work puzzling and this answered some of the questions.
His use of screen-printing is interesting because I do it
myself, and have used it for the same reason, to incorporate a drawing in a
painting. It’s a way of getting a detailed, intricate drawing the way you want
it before committing to canvas. Baechler’s use of the medium goes far beyond
mine, however. In
an exhibition in New York he has used as
many as 23 different colours in one painting, each requiring its separate screen and process.
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