Alex

“I try to make these big, aggressive, confrontational images that you can see from clear across the room, and you have one kind of relationship with it there, and another relationship at a middle viewing distance where you can scan it and you can’t readily see the thing as a whole. And then hopefully I’ve sucked the viewer right up to the canvas where you can see the individual marks and methodology—how it got there.” —Chuck Close Chuck Close’s monumental portraits draw attention to process as well as image. Working from a 24 x 20-inch Polaroid, Close imposed a grid to enlarge and transfer the image of artist Alex Katz (American, born 1927) onto canvas. He then applied thousands of dabs of paint, allowing the grid to remain visible. Viewed from a distance, the small painted squares optically blend into an illusionistic portrait, but at close range they separate into abstract markings. Katz’s distinctive features project an intense personality. However, since Close emphasizes factual, visual information and process, the painting’s emotional power is more a byproduct of the technique, scale, and iconic frontality of the image than of any intended psychological interpretation.