Chronochrome 15 (coda)

Cheyney Thompson has made the technology and the production of paintings the essential subject of his work. His white paintings with their repetitive motifs use the formal vocabulary of abstract painting; the motif is that of canvas itself, scanned, enlarged and then reproduced by hand on other canvases. The weave extends over the whole surface, a perfectly regular, optical, all-over painting, which Thompson renders in such conventional formats as those of the portrait or diptych. The seriality of the motif puts academicism into question, while infinite reproducibility destabilises the iconic status of painting, the system of production carrying more weight than the result.