Dimensions: support: 380 x 485 mm frame: 598 x 694 x 18 mm
Copyright: © The Piper Estate | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Curator: John Piper's mixed media piece, "Beach with Starfish," presents an intriguing composition of paint, collage, and ink, now part of the Tate collection. Editor: Immediately, the conflicting textures and jarring angles create a disquieting yet compelling visual experience. Curator: The incorporation of newspaper fragments, especially the sections forming the sky, adds a layer of semiotic complexity. Are they waves, or are they perhaps alluding to the ephemerality of current events? Editor: The starfish themselves, repeated and stylized, feel less like marine life and more like ancient symbols, perhaps alluding to regeneration or guidance. Curator: Note how the restricted palette emphasizes formal relationships. The brown tones dominating the foreground contrast sharply with the cool blues above. Editor: True, that stark contrast also contributes to its unsettling mood, the beach a repository of forgotten histories and altered forms. Curator: A fascinating interplay between representation and abstraction, wouldn't you agree? Editor: Indeed, the starfish lead us to question our place in a world both familiar and strange.
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http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/piper-beach-with-starfish-t05030
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As well as his abstract work, Piper’s early works include collages such as this one. Though influenced by the works of Braque and Picasso in the technique he used, Piper tended to take the British landscape, often a seaside scene, as his subject. In this case, the scene is the Seven Sisters cliffs near Eastbourne, and the newsprint is taken from the New Statesman, for which Piper wrote a number of articles at this time. Gallery label, May 2007
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