Christopher Wool’s "Untitled" (1984) is a rare early work created during the time when the artist experimented with painting while others proclaimed the medium as dead. While working as a studio assistant to the sculptor Joel Shapiro, Christopher Wool began his contemplation of abstraction. Suppressing overt imagery completely and moving toward a uniformity, Wool paints in a dedicated palette of blacks and grays and, in rare cases, colour. Untitled (1984) depicts a splash of red paint that is raw and densely expressed as if
on a forensic blood slide. The weathered and stained texture of the painting connotes congealing blood, both forbidding and seductive. By restraining colour choices and experimenting with techniques, Untitled (1984) demonstrates Wool’s focus on the process over the product. Similar to Robert Ryman’s approach to painting, Wool states, “I became more interested in how to paint it, than what to paint.”
