La Lune 15.October - 11.December 2005

‘Reflect’ and ‘Slice’ are two piecesfrom a series of work titled ‘Surface [W. Benjamin’s Nightmare]’
They were made using a Digital Painting Machine, which uses a photographically produced digital image file to generate a ‘painting’ using artist’s grade oil paint.

Disturbing in scale, their presence is also disturbing by implication. The image recalls the idealised beauty of classical painting and marries this reference to the interventions made possible by digital technology. This computer-automated process has been used to reproduce an identical image over a series of three dimensional painting supports or canvases. It is as if, in the process of applying the image to the support form, a visible mutation, or step in evolution, has occurred.

The curves of the support form do not entirely cooperate with the contours of the face painted on them, and the appearance of the face changes as the viewer moves past the work. This work, obviously made using technology, attempts to negotiate a place between our ideas of ‘copy’, ‘forgery’, ‘reproduction’ and the unique presence of a work of art.

This work is part of the body of work completed as part of Sarah Munro’s Doctoral research project completed this year at Elam School of Fine Arts.
This work was made with the support of a University of Auckland Doctoral Scholarship (2001-2004) and The Todd Foundation.

Sarah Munro

16. Reflect

Price: $9800
Media: Oil paint over shaped fibre glass support
Edition: 1/1
Dimension: 1400 x 1200 x 140 mm

Sarah Munro

17. Slice

Price: $9800
Media: Oil paint over shaped fibre glass support
Edition: 1/1
Dimension: 1400 x 1200 x 140 mm