Bernard Frize

Spitz

1991

Not on display

Artist: Bernard Frize born 1949
Medium: Acrylic paint on canvas
Dimensions: Support: 2545 × 3615 mm
Collection: Tate
Acquisition: Purchased with assistance from the Patrons of New Art through the Tate Gallery Foundation 1996
Reference: T07079

Display caption

Frize lays his canvases on the floor, and works on them at speed. He is less concerned with the creation of a meaningful image, than the process of painting itself. In Spitz (‘sharp’ or ‘pointed’ in German) he laid out the lines in red crayon and then coated the canvas in a liquid resin. The paint was laid into the wet resin, with colours bleeding and merging as he worked. Having set the process in motion, therefore, Frize allowed it to determine the final composition.

Gallery label, April 2007

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Technique and condition

The following entry is based on an interview with the artist held on the 23rd August, 1996.

The artist has used a fine weave polyester fabric on which to apply two to three layers of Primal AC33, an acrylic dispersion in water. With the intended brushstrokes indicated with red crayon, the canvas was lain flat. Onto the still wet resin, Liquitex acrylic paints were applied. I am painting with a bunch of brushes, one for each colour... the colour moves by capillary (action) or (by) mixing with the quantity of paint from other brushes (to) destroy the drawing. All is painted alla prima. It takes about four hours to dry.

The painting is not varnished despite the transparent resin surface.

Tim Green
August 1996