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Screen (Trees and Moon)

A work made of watercolor on canvas, five joined panels.
� Silke Otto-Knapp, Courtesy Regen Projects, Los Angeles

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  • A work made of watercolor on canvas, five joined panels.

Date:

2019

Artist:

Silke Otto-Knapp
German, 1970-2022

About this artwork

Silke Otto-Knapp explores the formal and material possibilities of painting as a medium and a representational space. By constructing compositions that highlight the flatness of the object, she heightens the sense of illusion both within the pictorial plane and in relation to the space in which the works are shown. Otto-Knapp made Screen (Trees and Moon)—the artist’s first ever stand-alone painting—for her 2020 solo exhibition In the Waiting Room at the Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago. The work is emblematic of the artist’s painstaking process of adding and removing watercolor pigment to create luminous, nearly translucent washes of paint. The black and gray angular botanical motifs evoke a Cubist aesthetic and pay homage to artist and Ballets Russes set designer Natalia Goncharova.

Status

Currently Off View

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Silke Otto-Knapp

Title

Screen (Trees and Moon)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

2019

Medium

Watercolor on canvas, five joined panels

Dimensions

Each panel: 243.8 × 81.3 × 1.9 cm (96 × 32 1/16 × 3/4 in.); 243.9 × 81.3 × 2 cm (96 × 32 × 3/4 in.)

Credit Line

Purchased with funds provided by Valerie Carberry and Richard Wright, Eric Ceputis and David W. Williams, Marilyn and Larry Fields, Gael Neeson, Laura and Marshall Front, and the In the Works Fund at The Chicago Community Trust, in honor of Solveig Øvstebø

Reference Number

2020.250

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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