As he lays stenciled image on top of stenciled image, there’s a sense of almost-random accumulation – of an open-armed embrace of what comes his way in the world – that is the same sense you get from his videography… Stencils, after all, are one of the most common elements in the visual palimpsest of urban life. Netter makes it feel as though he’s simply opened himself to them as they’ve floated by his eyes…
|
ARTnews, Sarah Douglas, Editor-in-chief
Michael Netter in Conversation (video interview) http://bit.ly/2aEyGUg |
“I like to iconify things, turn objects into symbols. Icons feel commercial… My style is intentionally impersonal and icons create distance.”
|
Graphic and boldly colorful, the work is rich with pop-culture references, from Popeye to Bob’s Big Boy to Alice in Wonderland…. “I want my work to feel like it was found on street walls.”
|
Bedford and Bowery, Kavitha Surana
Warhol’s Documentarian Finally Gets His 15 Minutes http://bit.ly/1OpaQwc |
Mikaela Sardo LaMarche, Curator, ACA Galleries: “One of the reasons we were so attracted to the work was because, despite the fact he hadn’t shown it before, it was really the work of a very mature artist who had a real vision that was really his own,” she said. “It really spoke to an overall sensibility of art making of a very specific time and place.”
|
For Netter, painting has always been about self-fulfillment and the act of creation; he chose to keep the purity of his experience by remaining private with his art for decades.
|
ARTnews, Winter 2017, Maximilíano Durón, Katie McMahon Habitat: Moonlighting -- Artists' Side Jobs http://bit.ly/2lsr6Qb |
Netter harnesses the power of familiar pop culture images, frees them from their moorings, and juxtaposes them in new and exciting ways. Warhol’s influence is superficially evident in Netter’s use of brand logos and pop tropes, but the message is a different one; Netter is wry without being overly cynical, and the overall effect amounts to witty, engaging, open-ended cultural commentary.
"Consulting is collaborative, highly structured, contextual, solution oriented. Painting is reflective, solitary, unstructured, enigmatic. Consulting is about answering questions, painting is about questioning."
“We shot a scene of Candy Darling playing Kim Novak for Dennis Hopper in the Chelsea hotel — four icons in one scene.” (Not shown.)
|