Birth Without Pain 1960

Erro made this painting with oil on canvas, deploying a dense style. Rather than emphasizing traditional artistic skill, Erro adopted a Pop sensibility; he wanted to flood the viewer with imagery. The material underpins the message. Oil paint lends itself to layering and blending, as we can clearly see here. The canvas is completely covered, with no negative space. A tremendous amount of labor went into making this painting, and the result is a hallucinatory density – almost as though the canvas has become a container for the artist's unconscious mind. In this way, Erro connects to the Surrealist movement that came before Pop, while also anticipating trends such as maximalism. The painting makes us think about the mass media and the incessant flow of images to which we are all subjected. It’s a reminder that the process and materials are never neutral; they always bring meaning to the creative encounter.