Gare du Nord

Comment

Comment by Aaron Wooten on July 19, 2012 at 7:15pm

Yes, very much so. Grotesquely beautiful is the best comment one could receive.

Comment by Resident Curator on June 18, 2012 at 3:39pm

I love your idea of comforting ugliness! I would never consider your imagery ugly, but there is an unflinching exaggeration that could be considered grotesquely beautiful. I take it you’re a John Currin fan?

Comment by Aaron Wooten on June 17, 2012 at 5:13pm

Great comment.  Thanks.  And you are right, the image was never meant to sooth.  Railroad tracks are loud and rough, travel is fatiguing and grit is grimy.  Individuals are eclipsed and molded into the city scene like flicks of dirt.  Cityscapes are non-sentimental and cut deep but they are also unwantingly necessary.

I may add that the pin-up ladies are similar in that they too lack a kind of sentimentality.  They are there, robust and full frontal.  I try to find an ugliness that is also comforting.  Thanks again for your lovely critique.

Comment by Resident Curator on June 16, 2012 at 7:37pm

  

Curator’s Comment:

 

I was able to pull my eyes away from your more acerbic figurative work momentarily to appreciate the more understated grittiness of Gare du Nord.  The Parisian terminal seems to be presented concomitantly as charmingly industrial.  The smoking black tunnel on the right side moves me into the space, and back out to the more open lattice pattern created by the rough architectural framework inhabiting the left portion of the picture plane.  It’s interesting that the bluish grayish smoke is the only amorphous shape in the painting, and area of mid range open value- its difference creates visual emphasis on an unlikely characteristic and component. The line quality also injects a jaunty mood, and staccato pattern of tracks, cars and occasional vertical antennae.  It is a pleasant scene, handled in an unassuming but sophisticated manner. I find it especially curious that the city scapes were created in the same year utilizing the same media as the exaggerated pin-up models, as I perceive them to be rather divergent sensibilities.