Milow’s first aluminium works were created in 1994. Before 1994, the artist had employed only the names of the deceased in his work. However, from this year he admitted living artists into his pantheon, as long as he considered their importance as assured. In a series of paintings on aluminium begun in 1996 (the present work is part of the series), lettering is made visible by substraction. Before paint is applied, adhesive letters and dots are attached to the aluminium in highly regular patterns. The aluminium is then washed in acid to give it `bite’. The execution of the painting, which follows, involves the masking of portions of the surface before each layer of paint is applied, generating configurations of comparable regularity.
The visibility of the words is assured only in a last step, the removal of the adhesive material. The faint sheen of the metal spelling great names of art history is on occasion just visible among the surrounding colours and patterns. Stone possesses the character of monumentality as much because of its size as because of its simplicity of form. Its title Stone demonstrates that Milow considers the work to be an image of time. Milow deliberately studies canons that exclude the most recent artistic developments. Canons in Milow’s work are portrayed as necessarily tested by time and his art historical interests are intertwined with his attentiveness in the notions of death, commemoration and memory.