Flag from the collection of Brendan Burgess

Flag

oil on gesso panel

25.5 x 30 cm

Publications: Monograph Claire Kerr 2006-2016 Paintings and Notes, r/e projects publications, 2017 (2 volumes)

I wanted to see what would happen to something that had an obvious symbolic resonance when it is compromised by “hand-made-ness”.

It would be impossible to paint a ﬂag and not think of Jasper Johns – but what happens when the strange combination of abstraction/representation that a ﬂag comprises is further confused/compromised by signs of “making”? I was thinking also of Joseph Albers “Homage to the Square”. So, this painting is derived from an object that I had made (the painting is another type of madeness) and I have included the various imperfections – stray bits of thread, folds and puckers in the material, to emphasise the sense of a single, particular object on a picture plane. Nevertheless, it is likely that our cultural response to an object/image of this kind will conjure up a ﬂag, which might have a symbolic meaning whether by its shape, colour or both.