LINES-2301/17

Name: Ragnar Digital, LLC
Price range: $

Bauer/Mlakar

2023

Plotter Drawing

Description

LINES-2301/17 is an oil painting on vellum by the collaborative duo Martin Bauer and Maj Mlakar, who work under the name MMACHINE. At once meticulous and idiosyncratic, the work foregrounds its unusual material and mechanical conditions.

The abstract composition originated as a digital sketch before being translated into oil paint on vellum using a custom plotter. This was not a purpose-made art device, but rather a laser-cutting machine made in the 1990s to fabricate sails. Reconfigured by the artists, the machine dragged a brush across the sensitive surface of vellum, depositing oil paint line by line. The title refers both to this accumulation of repeated lines and to the work’s date of execution.

MMACHINE’s hybrid process produces a deliberate tension: the algorithmic regularity of the image is unsettled by the physical resistance of paint, brush, and support. In LINES-2301/17, that tension is heightened by the use of a single color, which draws attention to subtle variations in pressure, texture, and density—evidence of a machine-made image that remains insistently, materially imperfect.