Pat Steir

These paintings make my next step possible.

—Pat Steir

Pat Steir’s vibrant and expressive Taipei paintings represent the latest development of her celebrated Waterfall series. She initiated these works immediately after the completion of two major suites of monumental, rigorous projects: Silent Secret Waterfalls for the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia (January–November 2019) and Color Wheel for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC (October 2019–July 2021). To create the Taipei paintings, Steir first applied a solution of diluted oil and varnish to a vertically oriented canvas. She coated her canvases with multiple layers, dipping a wide industrial brush in thinned oil paint and positioning it against the canvas, allowing the pigment to stream freely down her standing support. Once this ground is dry, she applied flowing paint with a loaded brush, creating an interplay between directed gesture, chance, and the force of gravity. Steir approaches the creation of each painting as a physical and spiritual act, her process serving, paradoxically, as a means of surrendering control—an approach to artmaking that is deeply indebted to her sustained study of Eastern thought. The artist’s works on paper are currently on view at Lévy Gorvy New York through October 1.

Pat Steir
Untitled XVIII, 2020 (Taipei), 2020
Oil on canvas
36 x 36 inches (91.4 x 91.4 cm)
© Pat Steir
Photo: Tom Powel Imaging