Knight4

Comment

Comment by Shawn Yu on May 3, 2012 at 6:46pm

Thank you so much for the kind remarks.  as for the surface quality of the Table piece, I tryed to make the hands and the pot as physical as possible.  and the head with in more ethereal.  I wonder if it worked.  And Thank you for the ALice reference.  It is indeed a major influence on me and my childhood.  

Comment by Resident Curator on May 3, 2012 at 12:27pm

Curator’s Comment:

 

I adore the magical realism threaded through your series of figures and reflective tea kettles.  They are fanciful and quirky, but also layered with ambiguous undercurrents of class or gender relationships and self-destruction within a contemporary fairy tale.  This particular painting employs gorgeous nuance of white on white, contrasted with the fleshy pinkness of the heads and decoratively patterned background.  The heads seem to roll, like cups, from the ominous kettle above.  The darkest object, its reflective power enhancing its stout profile, creates a decidedly figurative presence.  Reigning over the cups, the kettle curiously reflects a rather empty room, as opposed to the heads and cups recurring in the background.  Perhaps the title and reference to knights/chess influences my edifying reading of the subject as an Alice in Wonderlandesque ‘off with their heads’ edict.   The other piece simply designated as “table” is also a beautiful macabre study. I especially appreciate the paint quality.  I’m wondering if the paint surface is in fact built up differently in this work, or if it just highlights a limitation of viewing the work digitally, removed from the original object. Either way, the head in Table is skillfully viewed through the diffused kettle surface- cooler and less intense than the elements outside the physically textured and contrasted light.  Again, here the highlights become the most disturbing element beyond the severed head- for they confirm the scene exists in a space in which we are aware of natural factors such as gravity and light.