Artworks

Till Freiwald

German, b. 1963

Untitled, 2001

Watercolor

30 1/2 x 21 in. (77.47 x 53.34 cm)

Marie-Louise and Samuel R. Rosenthal Fund, 2001

Till Freiwald's work explores the progression from the real to the represented, from three-dimensional to two, and in some sense from the particular to the ideal/generic — interrogating the conceit by which we conflate seeing with knowing. He begins by making small detailed studies of his sitters in the studio, and then, over a period of time, he produces the final larger image from the combination of sketch, memory, and facility with the watercolor medium, resulting in a flattened, generalized, distilled representation. He makes us conscious of the portrait as a simulacrum, the face as a surface. Either in art or in life, how often do we see any deeper?