Robert Sagerman
22,694, 2022
oil on canvas
36 x 60 inches
Using intensely colored paint, Sagerman adds "mark" upon "mark" of thick paint to create a painting as much as 3 inches deep and made up of thousands of marks, resulting in work that crosses boundaries between painting and sculpture. The color field paintings are painstakingly documented as they are created by the artist, who counts and records each mark of each color and the time spent applying them. The titles of the final paintings represent the total number of marks, for example, "12,902". From the beginning of his practice, Sagerman, who earned a Ph.D. in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University in 2008, has been inspired by medieval Jewish mystics who engaged in a form of meditation through counting, that the kabbalists believed could bring the meditator to a state of divine clarity and transcendence.
Using intensely colored paint, Sagerman adds "mark" upon "mark" of thick paint to create a painting as much as 3 inches deep and made up of thousands of marks, resulting in work that crosses boundaries between painting and sculpture. The color field paintings are painstakingly documented as they are created by the artist, who counts and records each mark of each color and the time spent applying them. The titles of the final paintings represent the total number of marks, for example, "12,902". From the beginning of his practice, Sagerman, who earned a Ph.D. in Hebrew and Judaic Studies from New York University in 2008, has been inspired by medieval Jewish mystics who engaged in a form of meditation through counting, that the kabbalists believed could bring the meditator to a state of divine clarity and transcendence.