Hanging

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on December 16, 2016 at 8:54am

Curator’s Comment:

The unexpected positioning of the figure within the picture plane in Hanging recently caught my attention. I’m interested in the way the muted brown tones in the boy and tree limb form a separate image so to speak, from the more colorful and expressive background. The further compartmentalization of the yellow ochre hues in the very top portion of the composition echo the splattered marks at the bottom, offering a sensation the subject is suspended or stretched between fields of color as well as sky and ground. The more intense colors in the bottom suggest danger in the predicament, but are also strangely supportive in the picture, anchoring the visual weight in the otherwise empty bottom space. I also like the second (5896) presumably untitled painting of the couple with champagne. The explosive yellow “bubbly” bursting from the glasses and bottle animates the space, and injects a slightly cartoonish quality to the scene. I enjoy that the viewer is positioned so that we become part of their intimacy; their attention drawn to each other (him) or an another outward subject (her) further compresses the space between us.