Created for Stephen Friedman Gallery’s 25th anniversary in 2020, this vibrant work by David Shrigley plays with the theme of time with characteristic wit and energy. ‘Untitled’ is a unique work on paper from a series of 125, the subtle differences in each reflecting the particularity of each moment. Riffing on the effects of op art but with a deliberately imperfect aesthetic, the composition is dominated by a wave of multi-coloured, gestural brushstrokes that suggest the path or blur of a moving object. Shrigley sets off this sweep of colour with spontaneous flicks of paint and the explanatory note, ‘Time’ rendered in his distinctive handwriting. This pared-down composition of text and image recalls a child’s first words flashcard. However instead of representing an everyday object, in this work the artist illustrates an abstract concept with amusingly exuberant simplicity.

During his major touring solo exhibition, ‘Brain Activity’ at Hayward Gallery, London in 2012, Shrigley explained his interest in the disjunct between image and text. “A lot of the work that I make is about the relationship between language and images, text and images… For me there is some sort of, maybe, slippage of the word and the object. I am interested in that odd relationship. It does not mean anything, but intuitively I am drawn to that. […] I’m very much thinking about Rene Magritte’s painting ‘The Treachery of Images’ (1928-9). The image (a pipe) and the words that describe the image (Ceci n’est pas une pipe) are two different things. Objects and ideas are two different things.”