Sean Paul @ Thomas Duncan

"Blue Jean, Belt Loops (Front/Back." 2013
Ultraviolet-curable inks, acrylic, Sintra,
aluminum, and wood
24 3/8 x 1 3/8 x 7/16 inches 

Detail.

"Arrangement Eos, Front/Top/Bottom/Right," 2013
Ultraviolet-curable inks, acrylic, canvas, and wood
32 3/4 x 49 3/16 x 1 1/8 inches

Detail (top left corner)

Detail (right side)

Detail (somewhere middle)

Detail (bottom center)

Last summer (2012), a couple of other Paul paintings were on view at Blum&Poe as part of Standard Operating Procedures, a group show curated by Piper Marshall (see the following link for details
http://dayoutlast.blogspot.com/2012/08/standard-operating-procedures-curated.html).  Hardly "paintings" in the literal sense, they do refer to paintings both historical and present.  Paul's relationship to the photographic and printed image is clear; certainly, other painters are engaged with such concerns. What I like about these works is how compositionally they draw attention to the edges, thereby, in one very practical way making it difficult to photograph and crop, that is to say reproduce and distribute. That being said, I'm not sure if what is actually there in the direct view is enough in and of itself. Because they appear so mechanical I am unable to access the marks of their making, and am left, instead, to read about why I should care about what I am seeing.  This latter point, indeed, fits the times.   My preference is for a more well-integated version of both (a palpable sense of its construction as well as a story behind it). Of course, sometimes it's nice to just riff mentally as a viewer with no guidance at all. On this latter point, unfortunately, there is just not enough points of departure outside of thinking about printing and cropping images, an issue of scale in the contemporary to be sure.