GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957)

George Condo’s unparalleled approach to figuration has afforded him a singular space in the history of American contemporary art. In the centre of Untitled, an orange woman formed of bone and bead metamorphoses, while in the foreground, tiles spell out the artist’s initials and the date. Pops of luscious colour exaggerates the absurdity of this fantastical dreamscape, reminiscent of Salvador Dalí’s otherworldly canvases. Indeed, Condo’s work is a boisterous amalgamation of art historical styles and influences, drawing from Expressionism, Surrealism, and Cubism, among others. Of his fusions, he notes, ‘I describe what I do as psychological cubism. Picasso painted a violin from four different perspectives at one moment. I do the same with psychological states. Four of them can occur simultaneously. Like glimpsing a bus with one passenger howling over a joke they’re hearing down the phone, someone else asleep, someone else crying – I’ll put them all in one face’ (G. Condo, quoted in S. Jeffries, ‘George Condo: I was delirious. Nearly Died,’ The Guardian, February 10, 2014).