Black Square
* Nicholas Johnson * That I cannot remember the first time I saw Gillian Carnegie’s Black Square is a testament to its creeping, subtle complexity. It is a simple painting to describe: a monochrome black square of canvas just under two meters. Hidden in the black is a landscape delineated only by variations in brushwork, which means it is an extremely difficult painting to photograph. The first time I saw Black Square was in a photograph, a jpeg on the internet, and it wasn’t until this past summer that I was able to see it on a wall, in the flesh, at the Tate in London during their ‘Looking at the View’ exhibition (2013).
* Nicholas Johnson * That I cannot remember the first time I saw Gillian Carnegie’s Black Square is a testament to its creeping, subtle complexity. It is a simple painting to describe: a monochrome black square of canvas just under two meters. Hidden in the black is a landscape delineated only by variations in brushwork, which means it is an extremely difficult painting to photograph. The first time I saw Black Square was in a photograph, a jpeg on the internet, and it wasn’t until this past summer that I was able to see it on a wall, in the flesh, at the Tate in London during their ‘Looking at the View’ exhibition (2013).
