Jimmy Joe Roche
Greater Black Astral Dripper
2013
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Jimmy Joe Roche
Greater Black Astral Dripper
2013
Physical Qualities
Aluminum, digital print on vinyl, and acrylic paint, 122 1/2 x 99 1/2 x 9 1/4 in. (311.2 x 252.7 x 23.5 cm.)
Credit Line
Alice and Franklin Cooley Fund
Object Number
2013.288
The mirrored forms of Jimmy Joe Roche’s sculpture evoke the two hemispheres of the brain and resemble the symmetrical inkblots used in Rorschach psychological tests—imagery also explored by Andy Warhol in the 1980s. In Rorschach testing, a subject is asked to free associate with a sequence of shapes as part of a carefully structured process for analyzing the human psyche. However, Baltimore-based Roche replaces the standard black inkblots of the test with a complex and pulsating network of lines and colors, perhaps to suggest a mazelike and highly animated state of mind.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by purchase, 2013; RARE Gallery, NY; the artist
