Picture "Astonishment" (2018) (Unique piece)
Picture "Astonishment" (2018) (Unique piece)
Quick info
unique piece | signed | dated | oil on MDF | framed | size 33.5 x 33.5 cm
Detailed description
Picture "Astonishment" (2018) (Unique piece)
The Berlin painter Edward B. Gordon paints a picture every day. Every day, seven days a week, for years, he produces his square, 15 x 15 centimetre daily paintings. These are snapshots of big city life in which Gordon captures his impressions of each day: "No matter what the day was like, I go into my studio and paint my picture."
Oil on MDF, 2018. Signed and dated. Picture size 15 x 15 cm. Size in frame 33.5 x 33.5 cm as shown.
About Edward B. Gordon
Scenes of a big city: a young woman crossing the rain-soaked street, an umbrella glowing in the sunlight - situations that were reality a moment ago but already faded. Edward B. Gordon (born in 1966) is able to capture these exact moments in pictures. He gives them back their liveliness in rough brushstrokes and rich colours.
In 2006, he starts to paint a 15 x 15 cm picture every day and posts it on the internet. Out of nowhere, he builds up an international collector base. With this daily routine and discipline, he develops his painting. "Since I started painting a picture every day, I have become more aware of many things, for example, the weather and the seasons, especially their quiet but sometimes dramatic changes, the changes in light and mood... My perception has definitely changed. In this process, I have learned to see, instead of just looking."
Gordon also creates numerous larger paintings, on which he works for months or sometimes even years. Sometimes they depict places to linger or tell stories of fleeting moments. His painterly skill unfolds the best on large canvases, where he transforms everyday scenes into overwhelming poetry.
Depiction of typical scenes from daily life in painting, whereby a distinction can be made between peasant, bourgeois and courtly genres.
The genre reached its peak and immense popularity in Dutch paintings of the 17th century. In the 18th century, especially in France, the courtly-galant painting became prominent while in Germany the bourgeois character was emphasised.
A one-of-a-kind or unique piece is a work of art that has been personally created by the artist. It exists only once due to the type of production (oil painting, watercolours, drawing, etc.).
In addition to the classic unique pieces, there exist the so-called "serial unique pieces". They present a series of works with the same colour, motif and technique, manually prepared by the same artist. The serial unique pieces are rooted in "serial art", a type of modern art, that aims to create an aesthetic effect through series, repetitions and variations of the same objects or themes or a system of constant and variable elements or principles.
In the history of arts, the starting point of this trend was the work "Les Meules" (1890/1891) by Claude Monet, in which for the first time a series was created that went beyond a mere group of works. The other artists, who addressed to the serial art, include Claude Monet, Piet Mondrian and above all Gerhard Richter.