"All this must be either surfed or painted" This is the underlying
sentiment behind Raymond Pettibon's iconic works of surfers and waves in
this quintessential volume dedicated to the motif.
Pettibon is known for his characteristically enigmatic aesthetic and
sharply satirical critiques of American culture. Though drenched in
cynicism, his work empathizes with the dizzying madness of our own
humanity as it engages both so-called high and low culture. Perhaps most
poetic among the many motifs present in Pettibon's oeuvre is the surfer.
In 1985, Pettibon began his series of surfers and waves--which he
continues to work on to this day--popular for depicting a lone surfer
silently carving "a line of beauty" along an impossibly large wave.
This book spotlights a selection of more than one hundred surfers from
the series, from smaller monochromatic works on paper to colorful
large-scale paintings applied directly to the wall. For Pettibon's
protagonist in these works, surfing exists apart from all else.
Momentarily he achieves sublimity on the wave, distant yet synced with
turbulent reality. We are forced to confront our own scale: small and
feeble in the face of the power of nature, what is beyond our control.
Pettibon's lyrical writings on these painted surfaces--both his own and
lines taken from literature--reference his own philosophies and the
confusions of reality: he critiques and highlights the hypocrisies and
vanities of the world he engages. To help navigate, the scholar Brian
Lukacher explores art-historical antecedents in Pettibon's work,
particularly the seascapes of J. M. W. Turner, and Jamie Brisick, the
writer and former professional surfer, examines the Southern California
surf and music culture of Pettibon's youth. Professional big wave
surfers Emi Erickson and Stephanie Gilmore also describe the sensory
experience of conquering the enormous waves depicted in Pettibon's
works.
