Radio Chatter 1980

"Radio Chatter" by Don Ivan Punchatz is a painting that could have emerged from a dream, or maybe from late-night channel surfing. The artist's been moving things around, trying out different shapes and colors like someone improvising at a piano. I imagine him standing there, brush in hand, thinking about how the mechanical and the organic collide, how voices travel through airwaves to reach us. The two sets of wind-up teeth chatter away on either side of the microphone as the American flag sits neatly on top. The surface is smooth, almost like glass, which gives the whole thing an otherworldly quality, as if it’s a transmission from a parallel dimension. It makes me think about the surrealists. And then the way Punchatz takes the mundane and makes it strange. Ultimately, I see all artists like Punchatz, broadcasting out into the world, hoping someone will tune in.