Double Cross, Red on White (Off Vertical)
Artist
Rodney Carswell
(American, born 1946)
Date1988
Mediumoil and wax on canvas and wood
Dimensions70 × 70 × 4 in. (177.8 × 177.8 × 10.2 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineGift of Calida Carswell and Rodney Carswell, 2024
Object number2024.11.1
DescriptionCream colored painting on cross-shaped canvas that is slightly tilted to the left. Cross is comprised of four individually stretched panels. A painted red cross cuts across the surface.eMuseum Notes
Rodney Carswell’s three-dimensional paintings from the 1980s and 1990s recall both suprematism, which uses elemental shapes and color to create form, and constructivism, which took suprematism one step further to create an interchange between painting and architecture. Carswell also infuses much of this work with the memory of the renaissance, creating altar-like pieces that evoke the structure and shape of retablos, or devotional paintings, found readily throughout the southwest. With an emphasis on the surface of his paintings, Carswell creates an almost skin-like texture through a continual building up and scraping down of paint and wax. In Double Cross, Red on White (Off Vertical) the artist explores the elemental components of painting: structural support and surface.
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