Still LIfe 1997

Roy Lichtenstein made this cool painting, Still Life, with graphic shapes, benday dots, bold lines, and a tight colour scheme. When I look at this, I think about how hard-edged abstraction and graphic design were becoming a legitimate form of painting. The brushstroke had had its day, but Lichtenstein shows us the means of production and reproduction, and the newness of industrial materials. I feel this need to break down an image into its basic components, to understand the nuts and bolts of looking. I imagine him wanting to show us all the things that go into making a picture – the different textures, patterns, the surface itself. There are endless possibilities for representing stuff: spots, lines, fake woodgrain! All these things are already representations, so he's upping the ante! Still Life is like a conversation that Lichtenstein has had with other artists across time, who explore how we see, and what we think we’re seeing.