Frank Bramblett, X Teardrop

Bramblett’s work is informed by the physical environment where he lives and works. In the mid-1970s, when he created X Teardrop, his studio was on the second floor of an eighteenth-century farmhouse in Lansdale, Pennsylvania. The ceilings were low and the space felt claustrophobic. The walls were interrupted by windows and doors, which prevented him from working on them. Faced with these spatial constraints, he began to pour thin layers of acrylic paint into deep plywood boxes and cardboard frames that he placed on the floor. The frames shaped the canvas and contained the liquid. Here, Bramblett poured brown paint directly onto raw canvas. A heavily saturated X flows outward from the center, seeping into the fabric and forming a shape that suggests animal skin.