In 2001, I began to call my exhibitions “chapters” as a way to organize and bind, as if zoomed out over time. This shift in terms was accompanied by a uniformity in the paintings’ support: gessoed plywood panels that adhere to the nesting geometry of the golden section. This method enables a single painting to be understood as part of the overarching whole.
The Hieroglyphic, Chapter 0.4, is my 40th chapter and my first showing in London since 2008. For this new chapter, I pounced on my lifelong love and obsession with Queen Elizabeth I. Elizabeth both appreciated and influenced the politics of her portraits. In 1560, she drafted a proclamation instructing her “portraiture sargent payntors” that no image of her was to be made unless it conformed to an official template to be approved by her and distributed throughout her realm.
Looking at hundreds of reproductions of her image in paintings and engravings, on coins and statues, I became interested in one recurring pattern—showing her face in three-quarter view. While clothes and background vary dramatically from work to work, the face remains mask-like, with only the direction of her gaze changing. Rarely does one have the feeling of knowing her from her image.
One allegorical painting struck me deeply. It depicts Elizabeth in the role of Paris, about to select which of the three goddesses will win the golden apple. Would she choose Aphrodite and Eros, representing love? Or would she choose Hera, goddess of marriage, or Athena, goddess of wisdom? Luckily, Elizabeth always took her time choosing. After all, in The Hieroglyphic (The Judgment of Elizabeth), Chapter 0.4, she holds not an apple but the globe.
– R. H. Quaytman
Expanded in its second year in terms of both number of artists and scope of presentations, Studio, curated by Sheena Wagstaff, highlights Frieze Masters’ commitment to living practice in dialogue with historical art. By focusing on artists’ place of making, it reflects the idea of the past informing the present moment of creation in an object for the future.