Other abstract artists of the 20th century explored the flatness of the “picture plane” where paint meets canvas, always retaining the sense of a space belonging to the image that is separate from the viewer. Sam Gilliam rejected this entirely.
“The surface is no longer the final plane of the work. It is instead the beginning of an advance into the theater of life.”
Sam Gilliam
Gilliam’s manipulations of color and materials erase the lines between painting and sculpture. He asserted that “My content, actually, in this sense, is material. It’s just the relationship of paint to paper.”
Gilliam lived and worked in Washington, D.C., where he passed away last year at the age of 89.
Artist Bio Via the Smithsonian
