born Los Angeles, California, 1961
For nearly fifteen years UCLA-trained Potter has been using film-stock as the medium from which he constructs "Paintings"- in which he stretches the "leaders, feet and spacers" from discarded film around stretchers in horizontal rows, which when assembled read as translucent minimalist canvases. Potter has always worked with found sculptural materials- from thrift store paintings to abandoned sofas- and as if responding to Duchamp’s abandonment of painting for the "assisted ready made" in 1913, he has transformed the objet trouve back into painting. It is appropriate and ironic that Potter has chosen the "primary medium" of his native hometown- the detritus of the end-product.
Potter’s film paintings have subtly evolved over the last decade- a transition that can be discussed with a vocabulary similar to that used to describe minimalist painting- from densely woven strips of 16 and 35mm stock to his current use 70mm IMAX material. Michael Duncan wrote in Art in America that these paintings "slyly recall ... the Zen-like conceptual landscapes of Agnes Martin (while) using cinema’s throwaway bits and pieces to transcend the medium’s own frenetic expostulatory nature." The milky translucent spacers are interspersed with bands of rich and delicately colored foots and ends which also contain images of marks, numbers, and sometimes even images and text relating to the film from which they were plucked- thus providing the titles such as "The Greatest Story Ever Told (reel 3 roll A)"
Potter's recent series, Backpainting marks a stylistic reversal as Potter moves away from painting oils on top of film stills in his earliest work to painting on the backs of each still. Potter was inspired to paint from the back when he closely examined the back sides of his older film paintings, noting the sculptural quality of the paint as it oozed from front to back. By reversing the location of the paint, Potter creates sculptural friezes with a Braille-like quality. Each work is comprised of 10 horizontal strips (x-axis) and 10 vertical (y-axis). Potter basket-weaved these strips and painted each composition with a single color straight from the tube. He recycled some of the film stretchers, explaining why some appear to exhibit a differing color from the rest of the composition. Potter's works are poised in an equilibrium of ambiguity, as neither photographs nor paintings. The underlying cinematic structure in each of his pieces is evident as he combines and layers film strips to create empty landscapes, intersected by bright splashes of activity. Potter seeks to create a complex and mysterious narrative in his monochrome works, comparing his pieces to "contests with previous and present 'Gods' of monochrome paintings."
For nearly fifteen years UCLA-trained Potter has been using film-stock as the medium from which he constructs "Paintings"- in which he stretches the "leaders, feet and spacers" from discarded film around stretchers in horizontal rows, which when assembled read as translucent minimalist canvases. Potter has always worked with found sculptural materials- from thrift store paintings to abandoned sofas- and as if responding to Duchamp’s abandonment of painting for the "assisted ready made" in 1913, he has transformed the objet trouve back into painting. It is appropriate and ironic that Potter has chosen the "primary medium" of his native hometown- the detritus of the end-product.
Potter’s film paintings have subtly evolved over the last decade- a transition that can be discussed with a vocabulary similar to that used to describe minimalist painting- from densely woven strips of 16 and 35mm stock to his current use 70mm IMAX material. Michael Duncan wrote in Art in America that these paintings "slyly recall ... the Zen-like conceptual landscapes of Agnes Martin (while) using cinema’s throwaway bits and pieces to transcend the medium’s own frenetic expostulatory nature." The milky translucent spacers are interspersed with bands of rich and delicately colored foots and ends which also contain images of marks, numbers, and sometimes even images and text relating to the film from which they were plucked- thus providing the titles such as "The Greatest Story Ever Told (reel 3 roll A)"
Potter's recent series, Backpainting marks a stylistic reversal as Potter moves away from painting oils on top of film stills in his earliest work to painting on the backs of each still. Potter was inspired to paint from the back when he closely examined the back sides of his older film paintings, noting the sculptural quality of the paint as it oozed from front to back. By reversing the location of the paint, Potter creates sculptural friezes with a Braille-like quality. Each work is comprised of 10 horizontal strips (x-axis) and 10 vertical (y-axis). Potter basket-weaved these strips and painted each composition with a single color straight from the tube. He recycled some of the film stretchers, explaining why some appear to exhibit a differing color from the rest of the composition. Potter's works are poised in an equilibrium of ambiguity, as neither photographs nor paintings. The underlying cinematic structure in each of his pieces is evident as he combines and layers film strips to create empty landscapes, intersected by bright splashes of activity. Potter seeks to create a complex and mysterious narrative in his monochrome works, comparing his pieces to "contests with previous and present 'Gods' of monochrome paintings."
Backpainting 2009-2010 [view
images]
Survey 2003-2005 [view
images]