Darren Almond Genital 2023

Price: £675

Original photo lithograph on Velin d’Arches paper
68 x 50 cm | 26 3/4 x 19 11/16 in.
Edition of 40, 4 AP
Signed and numbered
Unframed
Published by Edition Copenhagen

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Darren Almond – Genital

£675

An invitation to visit Lucian Freud’s studio following the acclaimed painter's death provided Darren Almond with a rare glimpse into the material remains of another artist’s working life. Gravitating towards the peripheries of the studio and the piles of abandoned cloths scattered throughout the space, Almond photographed the rags that had been used to clean brushes – prosaic and expendable working tools that had quietly absorbed the residue of this great painter’s practice. Recognising these remnants as being imbued with the memory of painterly gesture, Almond transposed the resulting images into a series of remarkable lithographic prints.

Taken as a whole, this suite of works transforms the quotidian tools of an artist into an elegiac votive offering. The traces and histories of painter, studio and sitter here converge to create a painterly tableau that speaks of absence and presence, record and memory.

Details from Darren Almond's suite of lithographs depicting the discarded rags of the acclaimed painter Lucian Freud

Genital is among the five smaller-scale prints from this series that each take their title from Sigmund Freud’s ‘psychosexual stages of development’: Oral, Anal, Phallic, Latent, and Genital. In these prints, each swatch of cloth is stained with accretions of discarded oil paint in fleshy, bodily tones – seen here together, the shapes and colours achieve their own inner tension. As the scraps of fabric twist and writhe, vortex-like whirlpools that draw the eye deep into the composition resolve in a hypnotic gesture of push and pull.

Produced with Edition Copenhagen, one of the world’s leading lithographic workshops, Almond’s images are translated into subtle prints that test the boundaries of the photo-lithographic process. Together, the prints become a provisional memorial, allowing intimate access to Freud’s working environment and creative process. In this way, they form a portrait that subverts the traditional notion of portraiture – shifting the gaze from sitter or painter onto the overlooked tools of artistic expression.