Provenance
Anonymous
“Provenance is the origin or source from which something comes, and the history of subsequent owners (also known in some fields as chain of custody). The term is often used in the sense of place and time of manufacture, production or discovery. Comparative techniques, expert opinion, written and verbal records and the results of tests are often used to help establish provenance. In the case of works where the creator's name is kept secret, the author's reasons may vary from fear of persecution to protection of his or her reputation.”

In this show the artist hopes to address the relationship between artist and audience.
And asks the question what makes a painting worth being.

Title: Skull Medium: Giclée Print Dimensions: 10" x 8" Year: 2008 Price: $100.00 [click image to enlarge]

Title: Heart Medium: Giclée Print Dimensions: 9 1/2" x 11 3/4" Year: 2008 Price: $100.00 [click image to enlarge]

Title: Blood Medium: Giclée Print Dimensions: 8" x 10" Year: 2008 Price: $100.00 [click image to enlarge]

Title: Snake Medium: Giclée Print Dimensions: 8" x 12 1/2" Year: 2008 Price: $100.00 [click image to enlarge]

Title: Growth Medium: Giclée Print Dimensions: 3 3/4" x 3 1/2" Year: 2008 Price: $100.00 [click image to enlarge]

Title: Mosquito Medium: Giclée Print Dimensions: 4 1/2" x 6 1/2" Year: 2008 Price: $100.00 [click image to enlarge]

Title: Eye Medium: Giclée Print Dimensions: 6" x 6" Year: 2008 Price: $100.00 [click image to enlarge]

Title: Bird Flu Medium: Giclée Print Dimensions: 9 1/2" x 12" Year: 2008 Price: $100.00 [click image to enlarge]

Title: Bear Medium: Giclée Print Dimensions: 7" x 5 1/2" Year: 2008 Price: $100.00 [click image to enlarge]

Title: Spider Medium: Giclée Print Dimensions: 10" x 8" Year: 2008 Price: $100.00 [click image to enlarge]

Buy the complete set

Includes: Skull, Heart, Blood Snake, Growth, Mosquito, Eye, Bird Flu, Bear & Spider Medium: 10 Giclée Print Year: 2008 Price: $900.00

All orders must be shipped to protect the identity of the artist. All orders are shipped via the US postal service and are insured. All sales are final. All works are sold unframed. Questions email:

Origin: Unknown I saw this. By Adriana Grant. Seattle Weekly, May 21, 2008 In SOIL's backspace hangs a series of watercolors, including a skull, a spider, and what looks like a human heart. This last one is an especially strong piece, a watery red organ floating on a white page about the size of a sheet of office paper, lined with blue arteries and red branching veins. This essential part hangs almost in the shape of a baby, curled up, possessing a primal power, though helpless there on a blank white field. The ironic title of the exhibit is "Provenance." From the French, provenir, "to come from," "provenance" is a term related to value and worth as well as ownership. But the pieces in this show have no provenance—the artist is unnamed. "In the case of works where the creator's name is kept secret, the author's reasons may vary from fear of persecution to protection of his or her reputation," says the anonymous artist's Web site. I'm intrigued, certainly, and though the intent seems to be to show these paintings on their own merit with no distracting names or perceived personas, I can't help but think: What exactly about these pieces doesn't fit with the artist's expectations? Turns out it's a simple explanation. Not at all coy. This series is the private labor of an artist known for very different paintings. Describing the watercolors as time-intensive doodles, the artist simply wanted to show them outside a commercial-gallery context, sidestepping any preconceptions that might travel with a recognized name. And it is beautiful work, loose-edged and intense, a catalog of anxieties no less potent for its namelessness. If anything, the series of objects—Skull, Heart, Blood, Snake, Growth, Mosquito, Eye, Bird Flu, Bear, and Spider—suggest a litany of fears that might belong to anyone.

My Name Is.... Art To Go By Regina Hackett. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 13, 2008 Anonymous. Unless lost through accident or neglect, an artist's name accompanies her work. And unless that artist is fierce in protecting her privacy, the name comes with the kind of information that colors the context in which the art is received and understood. In John Berger's "Ways of Seeing," he asked readers to look at a reproduction of Van Gogh's "Crows Over Wheatfield" and turn the page. On that page they learned (if they hadn't known already) that the painting is the artist's last before he killed himself. Berger's none-too-subtle point connects with those who turn back to look at the formerly pastoral scene and see death in dark wings. Anonymous in the back gallery at Soil wants to free a recent series of watercolors from the burden of being contrasted and compared with his other work. If he really wanted to be anonymous, however, he wouldn't have offered the "Two Figures" for sale at last year's Soil auction, as it is clearly a forerunner to the present series. Within the the space of a hand's span, these paintings fuse force with fragile grace and show tenacity in the face of oblivion. They are the visual equivalent of what Ezra Pound in his poem, "In a Station of the Metro," called "THE apparition of these faces in the crowd; Petals on a wet, black bough." For more images from "Anonymous," go here. Just as the artist wants to free his work from his person, he wants to suggest content as he erases it, prying his images loose from their proper names and turning them into emblems of a final flareout.

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