Balanced somewhere between a spiritual adventurer and an adrenaline junkie, the surfer is a Californian icon and the hero of Raymond Pettibon’s symbolic works, currently being revisited at Venus Over Manhattan, New York.
The artist has a gift for cramming a quart of action and emotions into pint pot paintings, relatively speaking, and has the ability to convey the huge scale of a monster wave and the fragility of the human figure in deft strokes. Pettibon portrays his surfers as solitary riders on a journey of discovery, at the mercy of tremendous forces which could overwhelm and crush them at any moment. Textual additions provide food for thought, and take the form of everything from verses of prose and poetry, rhetorical questions, and even paraphrased Newtonian laws. Oddly enough, Raymond don’t surf, although he lives in Venice, California, and has lived in the state since the 1970s. He paints on many topics but this exhibition, entitled Are Your Motives Pure? Raymond Pettibon Surfers 1985-2013, concentrates on the wave riders. The show begins on 3 April and runs until 17 May.
Raymond Pettibon
Untitled (That fact of…), 2003
Ink on paper
14 3/5 x 17 3/4 inches
36.8 x 44.8 cm
17 13/16 x 21 1/4 inches (framed)
44.9 x 53.6 cm
Courtesy of Venus Over Manhattan, New York
Raymond Pettibon
Untitled (Are your motives pure?)…, 1987
Ink on paper
24 x 17 7/8 inches
60.5 x 47.9 cm
26 3/16 x 20 3/16 inches (framed)
66 x 50.9 cm
Signed and dated ‘Raymond Pettibon 87’
in black ink on reverse
Raymond Pettibon
Untitled (Surfer), 2005
Ink, oil and watercolor on paper
23 3/4 x 17 4/5 inches
66.1 x 45.1 cm
26 3/4 x 20 3/4 inches (framed)
67.4 x 52.3 cm
Signed and dated ‘Raymond Pettibon 2005’
in red ink on reverse
Courtesy of Venus Over Manhattan, New York
Raymond Pettibon
Untitled (This left was), 2012
Pen, ink, colored pencil, acrylic,
gouache and collage on paper
55 x 84 inches
138.6 x 211.7 cm
57 x 91 1/4 inches (framed)
144.8 x 231.8 cm
Courtesy of Venus Over Manhattan, New York
Raymond Pettibon
Untitled (Here and there it), 1995
Pen and ink on paper
17 x 14 inches
42.8 x 35.3 cm
18 3/4 x 16 3/4 inches (framed) 47.3 x 42.2 cm
Private Collection, New York
Raymond Pettibon
Untitled (Man Stands As), 2005
Watercolor and ink on paper
22 1/2 x 30 inches
57.15 x 76.2 cm
26 7/8 x 34 3/8 inches (framed)
68.3 x 87.3 cm
Signed and dated verso
Courtesy of Venus Over Manhattan, New York
