Unearth

Amy Sillman

2003

Oil on canvas

Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston

Amy Sillman’s (Born 1955 in Detroit) work is aligned with that of Richard Diebenkorn, Philip Guston, and Willem de Kooning in blurring the boundary between abstraction and figuration. What makes Sillman’s work unique is the freedom with which she experiments with color. Early in her career, she painted in a riot of pastel and acid hues, but more recently her sensibility has veered toward digital-like colors and jarring combinations. Sillman has consistently resisted ideas of “good taste” and instead uses color to investigate the range of possibilities in painting. Cuing color to emotion and incorporating nonverbal jokes inherent in