Sarah Morris, Swan (Origami), 2007

Swan (Origami), 2007
Gloss household paint on canvas. 289 x 289 cm. (113 3/4 x 113 3/4 in). Signed, titled and dated 'S Morris Swan (Origami) 2007' on the overlap.
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PROPERTY FROM THE KIT FINANCE COLLECTION

PROVENANCE White Cube, London
EXHIBITED London, White Cube, Sarah Morris: Lesser Panda, 18 July - 6 September, 2008  

Sarah Morris makes complex, physical paintings that use rigorous overall grids and lurid colours, executed in brilliant household gloss paint on square-format canvases. Having studied semantics, the artist is informed by an interest in signs and the de-coding of the built environment. Therefore, while her approach may resonate with the strategies of rationalist modernism, running from Piet Mondrian to Peter Halley, Morris's formal reductionism is in fact the product of a semiotically distilled reference to the urban world.   The present lot comes from her highly acclaimed Origami series in which she explores the grid forms which result from the creasing and folding various materials. Recalling Frank Stella, the concentric squares and mitred mazes generate a complex and dynamic spatiality out of unremitting flatness. Zones of intensity and openness, of compression and release, lay-out instructions that map an outcome whose shape is not obvious at first glance.   "The (Origami) series is based on found origami diagrams. Contemporary applications of origami range from the continuation of ancient traditions, such as folding 1000 paper cranes to realize a wish, to more scientific uses such as mathematical and engineering solutions for the development of a 'soft' surgical technique in heart valve transplants. It is a simple process which gives rise to complex forms. The paintings depict an unfolded pattern of creases. Combining mathematical calculations and geometrical operations, a single canvas turns into a highly complex spatial sculpture and back into a plain diagram. Morris is primarily interested in how origami in popular culture, particularly film, is often used to signify an impending event." (Press release for exhibition, Sarah Morris: Lesser Panda at White Cube, London, 18 July – 6 September 2008)