Karmelo Bermejo Fiscal Oil Paint – Permanent Orange, 2013 Oil on canvas Signed with invisible ink Accompanied by a transparent Certificate of Authenticity, printed and signed with invisible ink In his recent Fiscal Oil Paints series, Bermejo challenges the buyer not to declare the acquisition of the piece and the gallery not to declare its sale. The artist adopts a Renaissance painting technique, using layers upon layers of glazes to built up a rich opacity of colour. A final glaze of oil impasto sets the inscription 'Undeclared Income' in the top layer of paint, but is legible only from certain points of view and under certain lighting conditions; otherwise the text remains hidden. Much like Robert Morris’ 1961 box that contains within it the sound generated during its fabrication, in this sense, these works carry with them the 'secret noise' of the buying-and-selling performativity they provoke.
