Still LIfe 1997

Roy Lichtenstein made this ‘Still Life’ with graphic precision. The flat planes of color and bold outlines are so deliberate, it’s like he’s flattened the world and served it up to us on a platter! The way he renders everything – the Ben-Day dots, the stripes, the wood grain – it’s all so…graphic! It’s like a cartoon trying to be a painting. Look at the apple, just a smooth field of yellow hemmed in by a thick outline. There's no attempt to give it volume or depth, but that’s kind of the point. I think Lichtenstein's referencing of pop-culture images and commercial printing techniques is similar to what Andy Warhol was doing around the same time. Both artists were interested in the way mass media shapes our perception of reality, and they weren’t afraid to challenge the traditional definition of “fine art”. What is real? What is fake? With art there are no answers, only more questions!