CHUCK CLOSE b.
1940
The stark, monumental portraits by Chuck Close gained recognition in the early 1970s.
Ideologically, art critics align Close with the Photo Realists because his portraits
are not paintings of people but are of photographs of people. Conceptually, the portraits
are linked to the ready-mades of Marcel Duchamp, in that they were taken with a Polaroid
camera, the images occurring almost instantaneously. The final paintings, however, are
developed by transposing increments of marks through the labor intensive use of a
Renaissance grid system. By manipulating the system for making these marks, Close is able
to alter the viewer's perception of reality. The images become, therefore, as much about
abstraction as they are systems for decoding information about the photographs and the
subjects.
Syntax has become an issue of paramount importance to Close. He has stated, "How an
artist chooses to do something is often as important as what the artist chooses to
do."' For Close, the processes that are chosen, whether mezzotint, oil, airbrush, or
pulp collage are often the most arduous and time-consuming imaginable. He feels that
resistance is important. Also of importance is the dialogue between the processes, or how
one technique informs the other.
The portrait Georgia, an editioned handmade paper piece, is an excellent example of
this synthesis. Close began to work with handmade paper in 1981. He was approached
by Joe Wilfer, master printer and
papermaker, who felt confident that the paper medium could be controlled to produce
representational images. The first images employed a plastic template as a compression
mold forcing the pulp to fill the cavities of the grid. During editioning, chips of pulp
were often pressed out, assuring uniformity of the pulp values. Close took this byproduct
of dry chips back to the painting studio where the original collage of Georgia (1984,
Collection of Chuck Close) was created. From the collage of Georgia, a tracing
was made, and Close asked Wilfer to construct a brass shim template, an oversized
"cookie cutter," that could be used to repeat the image as an edition. The
editioned Georgia incorporates thirty-six separate gray values. The paper pulp was
left to air dry, which reproduced the tactile spirit of the original collage.
Close does not paint commissioned portraits. "Anyone vain enough to want a nine-foot
portrait of themselves," he stated, "would want the blemishes removed." His
subjects over the years have been friends and family and most recently his friends who are
artists. The portrait Georgia, Close's daughter, assaults the viewer with its
imposing scale and texture, but also poses a paradox because of the sensitive familial
intimacy with which the portrait was nurtured.