The imposing monochrome-grey panel Untitled is a prime example of Wade Guyton’s unique approach to painting. Narrowing the gap between art and technology to its bare minimum, Guyton replaces the traditional palette and paintbrush with an Epson Stylus Pro 11880 printer. As a result, the artist has achieved a revolution akin to celebrated contemporary masters such as Gerhard Richter’s squeegees, Andy Warhol’s silkscreens and Jackson Pollock’s drips.
Describing his methods, Guyton explains, ‘there is evidence of this struggle in the work, in its surface. I've been putting different kinds of material through my inkjet printer and there are lots of fuck ups in the printing, the inkjet heads get snagged, ink drips, the registration slides. […] and it's interesting how the printer can't handle such simple gestures’ (Wade Guyton cited in exh. cat., Minneapolis, Midway Contemporary Art, Guyton\Walker: The Failever of Judgement, 2005, p. 49). For Guyton, the picture-making process becomes the primary concern of his final creations. Allowing for an element of controlled chance, the otherwise monochrome grey Untitled is filled with subtle anomalies caused by his printing process.
Writing about Guyton’s work, Ann Temkins has suggested, ‘it’s gone against everything we think of as painting… there are so many historical landmarks that precede him, so many artists who took the traditional notion of painting in a new direction’ (Ann Temkin, ‘Painting, Rebooted’, The New York Times, 27 September 2012, online). Guyton’s expansion of the language of painting and abstraction is a significant contribution to the history of art and has thrust him to the forefront of twenty-first century contemporary art.