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Pat Steir, b.1938

Waterfall Mirage, 1994

Pat Steir’s works are meditations on nature, time and the nature of art. Adopting the technique of earlier Chinese landscape painting, Steir flings pots of paint at the canvas so that the paint pours down in the same manner as water. This gestural technique is also seen by the artist as a kind of “dialogue” with the New York Abstract Expressionists such as Jackson Pollock.
‘Waterfall Mirage’ is painted on scrim, a transparent medium made of loosely woven linen, which becomes invisible from a distance, giving the impression of a waterfall between trees. The fabric thus facilitates Steir’s aim of a fusion between art and nature. She says: “The scrim is transparent. The existing light constantly changed the painting, and the paintings also added light to the existing light […] I have a beautiful grove of trees in my backyard. These scrims came out of just looking at what happens to light when it’s trapped between two verticals”.* ‘Waterfall Mirage’ was originally shown as an outdoor work in the grounds of the Irish Museum of Modern Art as part of the exhibition ‘From Beyond the Pale’.

*Quotation from a conversation with Pat Steir, September 15, 1992 by Brooks Adams, Published by the Robert Millery Gallery, New York, 1992.

MediumAcrylic on scrim
Dimensions Unframed, 386 x 386 cm
Credit LineIMMA Collection: Donated by the artist, 1994
Item NumberIMMA.459
Copyright For copyright information, please contact the IMMA Collections team: [email protected].
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Image Caption
Pat Steir, Waterfall Mirage, 1994, Acrylic on scrim, Unframed, 386 x 386 cm, Collection Irish Museum of Modern Art, Donated by the artist, 1994

For copyright information, please contact the IMMA Collections team: [email protected].

About the Artist

Pat Steir, b.1938

American artist Pat Steir (born 1938) studied graphic art at the Pratt Institute, New York, and painting at Boston University. Her paintings and prints consider ideas of nature, time and the nature of art. Steir’s influences include early Chinese landscape painting and the work of the Abstract Expressionists. Her work is represented in major public collections, including the Tate Gallery; MoMA, New York and the Whitney Museum of American Art.
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