Claudia Painting...

Comment

Comment by David Rockwell on November 10, 2013 at 8:08pm

Think you for the thoughtful comments, and for the feature!
-d

Comment by Resident Curator on November 7, 2013 at 10:40am

Curator’s Comment:

 

Claudia Painting Phase 4 is a stimulating and impenetrable image, employing an almost lasciviousness towards the languid nude figure while contrasting densely patterned and decorative text in the flattened background space. I detect physical/tactile inscription in some areas, particularly in an ambiguous embossed shape in the center of the piece. But the impassively detached numerals and letters don’t appear to contribute to contextual meaning, or act as a didactic tallying of a sum. Instead, I’m feeling they serve as a prevailing contemporary motif.  But the abstraction of the text along with their disparate spatial orientation could alternately introduce a disengaging emotive presence, roughly opposing the individualistic handling of the female subject. The anonymity of the text may be deepened because of their blocky stenciled fabrication. But I find it most interesting that this particular figure maintains a sculptural resolution and colorful intensity that competes with the ornamental motif, rather than becoming absorbed or more integrated, such as the figures in the recent piece Collision II, or the Fractured Figure Triptych and related series. Claudia’s gaze directs us back into the picture plane, to her own modeled curves, leaving the viewer no doubt as to the hierarchy of form.