Census

Throughout his long and prolific career, Sam Gilliam challenged the traditional definition of a painting as a flat surface covered with pigment and framed on four straight sides.  In the 1960s, he removed the stretcher bars (the supports that hold a canvas taut) and allowed the colorfully painted fabric to unfurl.  These draped works brought him renown.  The sensuous, billowing fields of color were attached to walls and suspended from ceilings, blurring the distinction between two-dimensional painting and three-dimensional sculpture.

Census continues that inquiry.  Rather than unstructured fabric, the artwork comprises painted sheets of birch plywood, cut into individual pieces and joined with piano hinges, allowing the various shapes to fold atop one another into the final composition.  As a result, colorful and patterned surfaces can be glimpsed through holes in the painting’s structure.  In some areas, the wall itself is visible.  The artwork’s irregular edges and pieces jutting out from the wall reinforce the idea of the painting as an object occupying space rather than as a window into another world.  Gilliam was not interested in the narrative power of painting, but in the visual play of space and shapes.