Wonderful World ワンダフル・ワールド

In the late 1970s, as the stoic and exacting tendencies reached the saturation point and lost their energy in the U. S., painting as an art form started to regain its innate power and figurative images were revived. Elizabeth Murray was central to this movement together with Borofsky and Bartlett. Her style has developed from the initial semi-abstract paintings on conventional canvas composed of bright colors and humorous shapes, to the works constructed of shaped canvases boldly presenting figurative images, and to relief paintings with three-dimensional volume. The series of works which present a familiar motif with a cartoon-like bold distortion and elevated into an artistic expression full of emotional drama make up one of the most positive manifesto on painting today. "Wonderful World" is　a large-scale relief painting, and features a coffee cup, a saucer, and a spoon. The artist has used this set of motifs, taken from the work of Cézanne, repeatedly. The huge cup, here presented as a flat tube of deep red, and the saucer are ready to slip down upon us, and their sense of movement is overwhelming. This is one of the artist's most significant works.