DRACULA 1981

Andy Warhol made this Dracula, and what strikes me is the almost nonchalant way he's handled the screen-printing. It's not about perfection. It's about the gesture, the attitude. Look at that pink outline against the black background. It's so graphic, so immediate. You can almost see Warhol dragging the squeegee across the screen. He doesn’t hide the process; he revels in it. The ink isn't perfectly smooth; it's got this slightly rough, textured feel that gives the print a real physicality. The way the pink lines tremble around Dracula's eyes and fangs, there is this mix of horror and humor. Warhol’s images are always playing with the surface. It’s not about depth, or some kind of deep meaning, but more about how we consume images and how they affect us. Someone like Laura Owens also picks up on that idea, and is also always pushing the medium to its limits. In art, there’s always another way to see, to think, to feel.