Joyce Pensato
Untitled, circa 1998
Enamel on paper
Paper dimensions:
43 x 35 cm / 16.93 x 13.78 inches
Framed dimensions:
50.6 x 43.3 cm / 19.92 x 17.05 inches
43 x 35 cm / 16.93 x 13.78 inches
Framed dimensions:
50.6 x 43.3 cm / 19.92 x 17.05 inches
B-JPENSATO-.21-0006
For her enamels on paper in the 2000s, Pensato continued her interest in the disembodied head of cartoon characters, facing frontal as though in a passport photo, a white visage...
For her enamels on paper in the 2000s, Pensato continued her interest in the disembodied head of cartoon characters, facing frontal as though in a passport photo, a white visage on a black background. The grainy, scattershot effect, which the artist achieved by blotting newspaper onto the enamel while still wet, seems to reference an FBI “Most Wanted” alert. In fact, Pensato sometimes referred to these enamels and some of her paintings as “mug shots,” even titling a series of enamels on paper from the early 2000s “Wanted.” Even on a best day, no criminal looks well in a mug shot; in Pensato’s hands, Batman, Snoopy, Tony the Tiger, and her dog Max look particularly disheveled and despondent. Akin to monoprints, these works proved a harbinger of the artist’s paintings to come from the mid-2000s until her passing in 2019.