Mirror 1972

This is a Mirror by Roy Lichtenstein, though when it was made, nobody seems to know! At first glance, the mark-making seems super mechanical, with those perfect Ben-Day dots and flat planes of color, but that's where the fun begins, right? Lichtenstein took the process of commercial printing and turned it into a handmade, painterly act. Look closely at how the dots shift and change, creating this weird sense of depth on a flat surface. The blue fading to white. That contrast with the bold green and blue, the circle which is both reflective and yet opaque. It’s like he’s playing with our perceptions, making us question what we see and how we see it. The physicality of the paint and the way he mimics mechanical reproduction is where the art happens. It reminds me of Warhol's screenprints, but with a more playful, comic book twist. Like they are having a conversation that spans across movements, ideas and decades.