Darren Almond Sturnus Vulgaris 2023

Price: £1,260

Original photo lithograph on Velin d’Arches paper
93 x 69 cm | 36 5/8 x 27 3/16 in.
Edition of 40, 4 AP
Signed and numbered
Unframed
Published by Edition Copenhagen

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Darren Almond – Sturnus Vulgaris

£1,260

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

Sturnus Vulgaris (common starling) is among the four larger-scale prints from this series that each take their title from the Latin name of a bird – referencing Lucian Freud’s observation that his paintings share the palette of British songbirds: ‘earthy brown tones and sudden flurry of colour’. In these prints, overlapping scraps of fabric, each stained with accretions of discarded paint in washes of ochre and terracotta with interruptions of cerulean, create a painterly tableau that both pushes at the edges of the image while also creating vortex-like whirlpools that generate a sense of endless motion. In Almond’s hands, cloth becomes not solely subject, but material and metaphor.

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.