Jean Dubuffet

Dubuffet was an academically trained painter, yet in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War and the existential crisis arising from its horrors, he sought another order of representation. In 1953, Dubuffet embarked on a series of paintings characterised by their thick paint, in which matter and gesture, rather than representation, dominates. Although the title suggests an image is intended here, an area of earth-coloured paint occupies nearly its entirety, with a lighter passage above that merely hints at a horizon and sky, but could equally be the surface of a wall. The whole is replete with gestural marks that suggest graffiti.