Inhale (Yellow)

Michael Craig-Martin 1941

Summary

A crowded, polychromatic canvas featuring a large pastel pink lightbulb in the centre, a blue globe without mapping detail, a metronome, an oversized pencil sharpener, a plastic chair, an ice cube tray, a cassette tape, an empty green filing cabinet, and in the background a step ladder and a dark aquamarine drawer extracted from a cabinet. Each object is changed in some way; certain objects are magnified, some are scaled down, and the saccharine colours and pastel shades are in some cases an unlikely colour for the object depicted. Each object is represented as unused; for example, the filing cabinet and the drawer stand empty. Each coloured area has a dark outline around it, and no areas of identical colour conjoin. This work was part of the installation 'Inhale/Exhale' by Michael Craig Martin marking the opening of the new gallery space at Manchester Gallery in 2002. Craig Martin painted magnified objects directly on the wall of the gallery space whilst also displaying a canvas on the adjacent wall, making it appear as though these objects were being 'blown up' out of the wall and onto the canvas. This installation acted as a precursor to 'Inhale (Yellow)'.