HOW TO APPLY SPOTS
Two contemporary artists, John Baldessari and Damien Hirst, use our favorite round marks in ways that we’d like to explore through our Spots stickers. We call the first, “Spot Masks” & the second “Spot Grids” and welcome you to make your own as outlined below.
Spot Masks:
In the 1980s, Baldessari, known as a wry conceptual artist, began using single color dots in collages, prints, and paintings to cover the faces of figures—"dot-portraits"—rendering them partially abstract and also playful. As we look at these pictures, we can't help but wonder who is beneath these colorful dots that act like masks. Below we’ve replicated Baldessari’s method using stickers from our collection and archival images. A new kind of picture emerges, somewhere between representation and abstraction. Who lies beneath? Make your own Spot Mask, and share with us @applystickers.
In Damien Hirst’’s vast series of colorful spot paintings, we see another creative provocation. Reminiscent of a Pantone chart, Hirst demonstrates his love of color through variations of gridded spots. To echo our own love for the topic, we’ve arranged a few of our favorite Spots on a colorful grid, painted by Paul Klee in 1925, and on view in Gallery 912 at the Met. As both Klee and Hirst show us, the grid is a structure for color.
On a larger picture make your own spot grid arrangement, and share with us @applystickers.
Image Credits:
- Kevin Amato
- John Baldessari, Stonehenge (With Two Persons) Orange, 2005, Mixografia® in colors on handmade paper.
- Alfred Stieglitz, Georgia O'Keeffe, 1918, Platinum print.
- Gordon Parks, American Gothic, Washington, D.C., 1942, Gelatin silver print.
- Damien Hirst, Spot Painting, 1986-present.
- Paul Klee, May Picture, 1925, Oil on cardboard.