PASSIO

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on April 1, 2013 at 8:20pm

Curator’s Comments:

 

Passio is an intensely charged sexual image.  The physical push and pull linking the couple creates a mood of titillating voyeurism, while the half masks and added fetishistic gear offer a slick and graphic contrast to the fleshy tints in their corporeal bodies.  But the reflective color in the black latex is significantly sensual and theatrical with its smoky purple and acid green highlights.  Psychologically, heightened allure and almost inscrutable curiosity is provoked by the similarity in the bodily attributes of the figures, and the fact that they’re physically bound together in what appears to be a double laced corset.  They may embody a ying-yang dynamic, or two halves of a strongly archetypal split persona.  The other images in this portfolio, with the uncharacteristic exception of the first untitled piece, are similarly endowed with a strong sensual androgyny or hedonistic fantasy.  Cruenta, as a single figure portrait lacks the dualistic exchange of the former painting, and so lacks elements necessary for the development of a more complex narrative.  But what the piece misses in terms of a multipart arrangement, it makes up for with Classical handling of the sole figure.  The hot, saturated color on the skin of the mythical devil is both seductive and raw.  But his slightly amused or mocking expression belies the injuries that seem to be caused by his own hands.