Jerusalem

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on November 27, 2012 at 12:14pm

 

 Curator’s Comment:  

 

Jerusalem means many things to many people, and the enigmatic painting bearing this title doesn’t disappoint.  I like that animals stand in for human subjects, while imbuing the piece with a decidedly humane quality.  The stately and imposing rhino as the central elevated focus appears to be a fish out of water, so to speak.  Archaic looking with his velvety armored body, his smooth exterior façade ultimately melts into peculiarly morphed and anchored legs. The sea animal in the bottom (center) is also incongruous to the desert landscape; an eternal and impermeable creature enduring the test of time.  The whole piece has a sensual honeyed quality with the warm ochre pigmentation and deep violet contrasts.  Shadows are all smoothly graduated, as if the artist’s hand is intentionally removed from the work.  The shrunken mature trees and strangely personified flower point are also of interest.  They point in the same westward direction, countering the gaze of the lone eastward looking black bird in the center.  But for me, the architectural labyrinth-like structure they all exist in is the most intriguing aspect, and narrative paradigm of the art work.  Cropped so that the viewer can’t see clear entrance and exit, all of the living entities seem bound to each other, despite their apparent sovereignty.