Pegboard Paintings

In the late 1970’s, Toynton began making individual paintings on the pegboard he’d previously used only for his installations; sometimes he hung lushly painted objects on the pegboard surface and sometimes squeezed paint through the holes themselves. In an article about his work, he wrote of wanting to ‘redeem’ this most banal and unaesthetic material by transforming it into art. Several of the works are diptychs or triptychs or even larger series, and while at first glance all the panels in a painting might appear identical, they are never exact replicas of each other; as one critic noted, this serves to compel the viewer — bombarded by instantly digestible images in ordinary life — to slow down, to  look carefully at what is in front of her.

(Images enlargeable)

[ Work for which no collection is cited are part of the Norman Toynton Estate ]