Roy Lichtenstein Painting on Blue and Yellow Wall 1984 Woodcut and lithograph 47 3/16 x 31 9/16 in. Edition of 60 Pencil signed, dated and numbered About the work: “My work isn’t about form, it’s about seeing. I’m excited about seeing things, and I’m interested in the way I think other people saw things.” Roy Lichtenstein was no overnight sensation, the art establishment in the early 60’s was not prepared to be faced with his then heretical blending of high and low art. Departing from the intellectual, nonfigurative style of Abstract Expressionism, Lichtenstein depicted everyday objects and drew inspiration from comics, advertisements, and children’s books. By integrating popular imagery into the realm of fine art, he invited viewers to recognize the world around them in his work. The use of parody and eye-popping comic images gives his creations a sense of familiarity that observers can relate to.  Over the course of a month and half in 1984, at his studio in Southampton, Lichtenstein created a series of eight works entitled “Paintings.”The works are derived from collages which combined hand-painted and printed papers, a printed enlargement of unprimed canvas, directly painted brushstrokes and cut-out variations of the artist’s famous schematic image of an abstract brushstroke. This week’s Work of the Week! WOW! is entitled Painting on Blue and Yellow Wall from the Paintings Series. This work is a parody and self parody made up of juxtapositions. It is the representation of an image and an image in itself, where “high art” and “low art” collide in a single setting. Painterly abstract expressionistic brushstrokes are interwoven with Lichtenstein’s own interpretation of abstract expressionist brushstrokes in a balanced composition. The positioning of the portrayed canvas is interesting in itself. The represented canvas is almost denied full attention as it competes with the vibrant yellow and blue wall-field of simulated wood grain. The frame of the depicted Abstract Expressionist image is unleveled and cropped.  As a technique consistent with comics, the cropping of forms was a method Lichtenstein employed throughout his career. Based on the Gestalt theory of perception that incomplete forms are mentally completed by the perceiver, Painting on Blue and Yellow Wall encourages the viewer to complete the depicted frame. Surprisingly, cropping is also consistent with Abstract Expressionism. Edges of a work on canvas were often determined by stretching upon completion, thus cropping out the borders of a finished piece. Most importantly in the case ofPainting on Blue and Yellow Wall, the act of cropping is fundamentally “Pop,” as it insists on the object-quality of a work of art rather than the illusion of the work of art as a window on the world. Painting on Blue and Yellow Wall embodies different ways of representing reality and is characteristic of the way Roy Lichtenstein’s art combines detached representation with dynamic perception. Lichtenstein’s art is much more demanding than it seems at first glance, he questions how we determine the way we view our surroundings.