Picture the wall (detail), 2017, oil, wood panel, canvas

Combining the history of oil painting with the visual language of our contemporary lives, Davin Watne’s Picture the Wall is an installation of 38 paintings standing ten feet tall and spanning the width of the gallery. The history of oil painting is steeped in the rhetoric of power. Evidenced by painters like Jacques-Louis David, who created public relations campaigns for political figures like Napoleon, and Gilbert Stewart, who painted the iconic portrait of George Washington, we can see the illusionist manipulation of oil on canvas as a means to convince publics. Drawing from this legacy, Picture the Wall employs the same visual language to interrogate how we understand our contemporary times and our social landscape through the images produced today.

Picture the Wall, side view

Picture the Wall, side view

Picture the Wall, back view