Gede Mahendra Yasa

This work is in good condition overall, as is the canvas, which is clear and taut. There is light wear and handling around the edges of the painting. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals no evidence of restoration. Unframed, on a stretcher.
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In 3 Flags #5, the artist Gede Mahendra Yasa sought to engage in the discourse of Western art theories and practices during the mid-twentieth century. Integrating the concepts behind Jasper Johns’ Three Flags with those behind Jackson Pollock’s all-over “action paintings,” Mahendra’s work shows us, quite literally, that contemporary art history itself has become a thing ‘the mind already knows,’ just like the subject matters that have occupied the initial phase of Johns’ oeuvre. With the recent booming of the contemporary art market, especially in Asia, the artist wants to show us that iconic Western artworks are now widely circulated in popular culture and have been ingrained in the general consciousness, just like the familiar symbols of maps, flags and target signs.

Upon first glance, Mahendra’s kaleidoscopic paint splashes in 3 Flags #5 immediately recalls the mural-sized expressionistic paintings of Pollock’s. Placing the canvas on the ground, Pollock would drip, splatter, fling, and smear paint from all directions. This method allows Pollock to directly channel his inner psyche onto the canvas, while the painting traces and makes apparent his complete artistic process. In Mahendra’s 3 Flags #5, though the top canvas is executed in an Abstract Expressionistic manner, the other two canvases below, in contrast, are painstaking reproductions of the first painting. Just as the stars and stripes of Johns’ Three Flags are replicated twice into larger canvases, Mahendra treats the paint splatters on his top canvas as patterns that can be formulaically imitated.

Employing the encaustic method, a fast-setting medium in which pigments are suspended in hot wax, Jasper Johns’ medium is slow and static as the wax impedes the pigments from dripping. Johns’ art practice thus negates the fast fluidity of the oil paint medium, evident in Pollock’s web-like compositions. Here, Mahendra transforms ‘high’ art – namely Pollock’s drip paintings—into a subdued compositional proposition. While Jasper Johns’ concepts signaled the transition from Abstract Expressionism to Pop Art, Mahendra’s 3 Flags #5 is a tongue-in-cheek rendition of the artistic sphere today.