Mark Grotjahn Skulls 2016 2023

A painterly meditation on corporality and mentality, infused with Post-Impressionist influences

In 2016, American painter Mark Grotjahn (born 1968) began a series of intimately scaled, thickly impastoed skulls. Made with brushes rather than his historically favored palette knife, these paintings affirm the influence of Post-Impressionists on the artist. After 15 years of Face Paintings and more than 100 Mask Sculptures, Grotjahn has stripped back the disguise and the skin and arrived at the 22 bones that structure the human visage. By introducing a symbol of life's inevitable end into his visual vocabulary, Grotjahn sets his sights on his own corporeality. As a result, the Skulls are his most intimate paintings to date.
This catalog presents the entirety of his series, alongside a singular essay by Alison M. Gingeras in which she posits that the skull is the origin of portraiture, charting the motif's emergence throughout art history.