Touch Screen

The essay takes as its starting point the assertion that the question of surface is inseparable from the question of the human body in respect of painting. Surface in painting exists as the interface between a possible virtual, projected space and the painting’s material skin – which, at least in principle, is accessible to bodily touch. The understanding and meaning of this point of interface undergoes complications and shifting formulations over painting’s history, however. The engagement of the paintings of David Reed with the transformed meaning of the painted surface via the mediation of the screen in contemporary culture, in particular that of the cinematic image, forms the main object of analysis of the essay which draws upon art historical analysis, film theory and phenomenology.