FROM THE ESTATE OF DR. EDMUND P. PILLSBURY. AL SOUZA (American, b. 1944). Wall Paper #6, 1999. Cut paper collage. 17-...

Description

FROM THE ESTATE OF DR. EDMUND P. PILLSBURY

AL SOUZA (American, b. 1944)
Wall Paper #6, 1999
Cut paper collage
17-3/4 x 15-3/4 inches (45.1 x 40.0 cm)

PROVENANCE:
Moody Gallery, Houston

EXHIBITED:
Houston, Moody Gallery, Al Souza, January 15 - February 12, 2000
Dallas, Pillsbury Peters Fine Art, Al Souza: The Assembled Image, May 27 - July 15, 2000, no. 22

LITERATURE:
Al Souza: The Assembled Image, intro. by Edmund P. Pillsbury, Ph.D., Pillsbury Peters Fine Art, Dallas, Texas, 2000, checklist no. 22, p. 17

ILLUSTRATED:
On Invitation card for the Moody Gallery exhibition

NOTE:
Ted Pillsbury acquired this beautiful example of Al Souza's early cut wallpaper work from the period 1999-2000, when he exhibited nine examples at Pillsbury Peters Fine Art in 2000.

Similar to the process he used for making his puzzle piece paintings, Souza began this series by hunting for raw materials--in this case sections of old wallpaper printed with patterns and palettes he then transformed into something entirely new, and undeniably exquisite. Like the puzzle pieces, the wallpapers are layered, but unlike them, the cut works rely upon subtraction rather than addition. Souza meticulously cuts ovals out of the sheets of printed paper, in seemingly random patterns. What remains from each sheet is a lacy lattice. These are then reassembled on top of one another, in a particular order and orientation, such that the "tracery" from the assembled layers crisscross each other in a dense linear pattern. As one writer noted, "Souza's instinctive sense of balance counteracts the chaos produced by the layering of pattern." Indeed, the effect of the cut wallpaper work is very similar to an all-over painting by Jackson Pollock or, in the case of subtler color palettes, Mark Tobey. Souza's wallpapers are sophisticated acknowledgments of the canonic efforts of the Abstract Expressionists, but also stretch beyond them. Souza was inspired to produce a second series of the cut wallpapers in 2003, as the result of an artist residency in Bellagio, Italy where he discovered a cache of irresistible, vibrant wallpaper samples.



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