Beschreibung:

Cecily Brown Follow Skulldiver II signed and dated 'Cecily Brown 2006' on the reverse oil on linen 215.9 x 226.1 cm (85 x 89 in.) Painted in 2006.
Provenance Gagosian Gallery, New York Private Collection, USA Christie's, New York, 15 May 2013, lot 534 Acquired at the above sale by the present owner Exhibited New York, Gagosian Gallery, Cecily Brown , 20 September - 25 October 2008 Literature Susanna Slöör, Rapport från New York: Måleri som sublimerad erotik , Omkonst, 15 October 2008, online (illustrated) Catalogue Essay Cecily Brown’s celebrated mastery of painting is captured within the explosion of bold and gestural brushwork in the rich tapestry of depth, colour and form evident in Skulldiver II. This monumental canvas acts as an encyclopaedic display of the physical possibilities of the medium, a showcase of painterly experimentation, control and emotion. Painted in 2006, Skulldiver II is an expressive celebration of sex, a consuming motif which has frequented the artist’s oeuvre since the 1990s. For Brown, sexuality becomes enacted directly in the application of paint, as the artist captures a moment of raw and chaotic pleasure which is simultaneously depicted as a moment of beauty. In the present work, Brown constructs a complex composition, drawing upon a rich palette of warm yellow and pink fleshy hues to transport the writhing figures to the front of the enigmatic pictorial field. Exhibited at Brown’s prolific exhibition in 2008 at Gagosian Gallery, New York, three sister works from the Skulldiver series were exhibited alongside the present work; Skulldiver III (Flightmask) is now housed in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Exemplary of the series, the present work vibrates with carnal lust, consuming the viewer with the power of ecstasy. Skulldiver II is direct and unapologetic in its visual reference to the sexual act that is suggested between the two figures in the painting. The energetic composition merges together in a celebration of desire; the figures’ bodies merge and blend with the fore- and background as if constantly in a state of abandon, while the outline of a pair of open legs welcomes the head of the other figure. Drawing upon a lengthy painterly tradition, the artist’s fleshy tones of the merging bodies echo that of the Neo-Classical figures depicted in The Death of Sardanapulus by Eugène Delacroix Brown’s earlier oeuvre featured more overtly sexual references, however developing her practice the artist found that the subtlest of visual signifiers alluding to sex would allow a greater sense of sexual ambiguity and unbridled desire. As Brown asserts, ‘..what I wanted - in a way that I think now is too literal - was for the paint to embody the same sensations that bodies would. Oil paint very easily suggests bodily fluids and flesh' (Cecily Brown quoted in Gaby Wood, ‘I like the cheap and nasty’, The Observer , 12 June 2005, online). Brown’s figures have a sculptural quality of the Neo-Classical whilst simultaneously her handling of paint conveys the same textual quality of Lucian Freud’s modern nudes. As Jeff Fleming describes of Brown’s oeuvre: ‘the paint on the surface of the canvas appears to breathe, making her paintings come alive with a human presence and, more significantly, with human sexuality. In Brown's work, paint literally becomes skin' (Jeff Fleming, 'Cecily Brown: Living Pictures,' Cecily Brown , exh. cat., The Des Moines Art Center, Iowa, 2006, p. 49). Scintillating in subject matter, Brown’s treatment of erotic scenarios appears instinctive. Brown expertly conveys a rapidity in her paintings whilst retaining a delicately balanced and careful composition, commanding a mass of brushstrokes to form a single entity made up of transient imagery. Sharing an affinity with the Abstract Expressionism movement, Brown explored abstraction whilst studying at the Slade. As a student Brown would cover up sections of Willem de Kooning paintings in exhibition catalogues and study details, marvelling at the painterly technique of a small snippet (Cecily Brown quoted in ‘Willem De Kooning: Conversation with Cecily Brown’, Border Crossings , issu