Morning Paper

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on December 27, 2016 at 8:33pm

Curator’s Comment:

I admire the originality and ease of the many archetypal and metropolitan caricatures you’ve posted to the site. They are reminiscent of the great Al Hirschfield, but arguably more kind. I nonetheless keep coming back to the mundane figure presented in Morning Paper. The piece is pictorially more representational, relaying on local color and mass rather than contour line. The openness of the space and unwavering horizon submit a peaceful mood, and yet the subject’s gaze is one of anticipation. The sun is absent from the sky, but the man is timelessly grounded on his bench by way of the weight of a heavily forested tree line behind, and long shadow beneath him. While the emptiness could suggest a theatrical outdoor stage within the plain landscape, the wide angle doesn’t outwardly anticipate action moving in off the edge of the picture plane. Fully stripped of the usual trappings of urban transport and commerce, the subject is alone with his thoughts- and ours.