Black swan

Category

Technique

Date

Dimensions

Signature

Proof(s) of authenticity

State of conservation

Framing

Location

Description

Oli Epp's Black Swan leporello is an object for both iconophiles and the merely image-obsessed. In its leatherette and accordion binding, Oli Epp's triptych of Black Swan paintings unfolds majestically, like the wings of this magnificent bird.

This beautiful object recalls the tradition of portable winged altarpieces, popular in the Middle Ages, and is further proof (if any were needed) of Oli Epp's commitment to the historicity of painting. In the booklet accompanying the publication, Maria Hoberman notes that, "If the artist's practice, subject matter and aesthetic seem preoccupied with the virtual, his chosen medium is decidedly analog. Working in oil and acrylic on canvas, Epp updates for the twenty-first century the notional window described in Leon Battista Alberti's seminal fifteenth-century treatise, De Pictura (On Painting). By comparing the picture plane to a screen rather than a window, Epp evokes the digital landscape in terms of traditional painting."

Mara Hoberman also discusses the connection between the Black Swan series and the Renaissance paintings of artists such as Perugino and Masaccio, among others, and their use of a "combination of geometry, realism, and symbolism to convincingly depict tangible and concrete, yet sublime and ethereal religious subjects." The three paintings in the Black Swan series are realistic, eerie, and studded with abstract and symbolic elements such as an egg, a pearl, broken glass, and ladybugs, which alternately accompany the swan on stage.

Published in a limited edition of 300 numbered copies signed by the artist, this medium format (9 ½ x 11 inches) leporello is intended for the collector, to be displayed, admired and revered.