Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5

Bill Armstrong
Untitled (Unspoken #1500)

2016

About the Item

Type-C print Signed, titled, dated, and numbered, verso 20 x 24 inches (Edition of 10) 30 x 36 inches (Edition of 5) 40 x 48 inches (Edition of 5) This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. Unspoken is a new portfolio in the Infinity series, an extensive body of work that I have been photographing since 1997, using my unique process of photographing collages of appropriated images extremely out of focus with the camera’s focusing ring set at infinity. Shooting close-up with the setting meant for distance subverts the documentary expectation of photography and turns the camera into a tool for visual distortion. Like the earlier figurative images in the Infinity series, Unspoken, consists of tableaux that depict indistinct couples in amorphous spaces. However, instead of being together, the figures in Unspoken are often separated in the frame and looking away from each other, suggesting a disconnect or tension between them. As feature, expression and individuality are erased, body language and the visual cues of posture and gesture become the keys to creating the narrative. With individuality eliminated the figures become archetypes and their placement indicates that isolation may exist even when people are physically together. The blur acts as a metaphor for the ambiguity, frustration and lack of clarity so common in human relationships. Some of the images in Unspoken contain three figures. In these triads—a notoriously difficult configuration—the “third wheel” might be a voyeur, a cuckold or merely a lonely individual, jealous of the lovers’ intimacy. Many of these images contain backgrounds that are appropriated from night photographs made by well-known photographers. These backgrounds often bring the dark sensibilities of the original image from which they came, even after being cut and reconfigured beyond recognition. Others have backgrounds taken from abstract color field painting that may convey the gestural feeling of the original. Extreme de-focusing blurs the edges within the collages, creating an integrated image that appears as if it was taken in the real world. This sleight of hand allows me to conjure a trompe l’oeil world that hovers between the real and the fantastic, where the contrast and harmony of color is the driving force behind a subliminal chromatic psychology. Unspoken reminds us that we can believe something is real, while at the same time knowing it is illusory; that the experience of visual confusion, when the mind is momentarily derailed, is what frees us to respond emotionally to the psychic play depicted. At the same time, I hope the inability to resolve these images compels the viewers to keep looking, mesmerized by the spaces of pure color, and allow themselves to drift into a meditative state.
  • Creator:
    Bill Armstrong (1952, American)
  • Creation Year:
    2016
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 20 in (50.8 cm)Width: 24 in (60.96 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU93232942353
More From This SellerView All
  • Figure #77
    By Bill Armstrong
    Located in New York, NY
    Type-C print Signed, titled, dated, and numbered, verso 20 x 24 inches (Edition of 10) 30 x 36 inches (Edition of 5) 40 x 48 inches (Edition of 5) This artwork is offered by Clam...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

  • Figure #79
    By Bill Armstrong
    Located in New York, NY
    Type-C print Signed, titled, dated, and numbered, verso 20 x 24 inches (Edition of 10) 30 x 36 inches (Edition of 5) 40 x 48 inches (Edition of 5) This artwork is offered by Clam...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

  • Figure #70
    By Bill Armstrong
    Located in New York, NY
    Type-C print Signed, titled, dated, and numbered, verso 20 x 24 inches (Edition of 10) 30 x 36 inches (Edition of 5) 40 x 48 inches (Edition of 5) This artwork is offered by Clam...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

  • Untitled (Renaissance #1030)
    By Bill Armstrong
    Located in New York, NY
    Type-C print Signed, titled, dated, and numbered, verso 24 x 20 inches (Edition of 10) 36 x 30 inches (Edition of 5) 48 x 40 inches (Edition of 5) This artwork is offered by Clam...
    Category

    Early 2000s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

  • Untitled (Film Noir #1437)
    By Bill Armstrong
    Located in New York, NY
    Type-C print Signed, titled, dated, and numbered, verso 24 x 20 inches (Edition of 10) 36 x 30 inches (Edition of 5) 48 x 40 inches (Edition of 5) This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. “Film Noir...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

  • Untitled (Film Noir #1414)
    By Bill Armstrong
    Located in New York, NY
    Type-C print Signed, titled, dated, and numbered, verso 24 x 20 inches (Edition of 10) 36 x 30 inches (Edition of 5) 48 x 40 inches (Edition of 5) This photograph is offered by ClampArt, located in New York City. “Film Noir...
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

You May Also Like
  • Khamsa II (Yasamine)
    By Aubrey Roemer
    Located in New York, NY
    Khamsa II (Yasamine), 2016 Digital c print 14" x 11 inches edition of 50 Set of 3 available for $1250 This image is of a young refugee girl on the shores of Lesvos clutchin...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

  • Franz Xaver Messerschmidt – Il Libertino
    By Massimo Listri
    Located in New York, NY
    Franz Xaver Messerschmidt – Il Libertino, 1994 C-print 100 x 100 cm Edition of 5
    Category

    1990s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

  • La Chute No. 03
    By Denis Darzacq
    Located in New York, NY
    Chromogenic print, framed to c. 30.5 x 43.25 inches Signed, titled, dated and editioned on label verso One of two artist proofs from a sold-out edition of eight. French photographer Denis Darzacq was born and raised in Paris, the city in which he still lives and works today. He graduated from the ENSAD, the French National School for Decorative Arts, in 1986, and started his photography career following the French rock music scene. In 1994, he began a series exploring the nocturnal life of Parisians entitled Only Heaven, which he exhibited at various photo festivals. In 1999, the French Ministry of Culture commissioned him to produce a body of work on French youth. In more recent work, Darzacq has focused on portraying young adults using their bodies to express an exuberant sense of freedom from the limitations life has placed upon them. In his two series La Chute...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

  • Young Swimmer in Hydra
    By Leandros Pigades
    Located in New York, NY
    Young Swimmer in Hyrdra, Greece, 2015 C-print 30 x 20 inches Edition of 1/5 Signed and numbered Leandros Pigades is a contemporary artist based in Athens Greece and New York C...
    Category

    21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

  • Delos Column #5
    By Lee Wells
    Located in New York, NY
    Delos Column #5, 2014 Chromogenic lambda print 16 x 20 inches Edition of 20 Signed, titled, and dated on verso label
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

  • Castle Despotiko
    By Leandros Pigades
    Located in New York, NY
    Castle Despotiko, 2016 Chromogenic print 20 x 30 inches Edition of 10
    Category

    2010s Contemporary Color Photography

    Materials

    C Print

Recently Viewed

View All