Feast

Comment

Comment by cate johnson on May 19, 2012 at 5:09pm

Thank you for taking the time to comment on Feast. Your insight is very helpful

Comment by Resident Curator on April 28, 2012 at 6:11pm

Curator’s Comment:  

               

Feast is so grotesquely attractive that I find it difficult to look away. The scale and formal construction of the piece approaches the excess depicted in the subject matter, as the articulation of small mosaic like shapes within the figures fully gives way to obsessive tendency.  The drawing almost exerts a horror vacui - the allover surface pattern breaks and fragments each shape into tiny cross contours on human topography... But the background remains strangely unaffected by this deliberate and methodical treatment.  The gluttonous narrative is complete with requisite stuffed pig and is immediately understood in the realm of debauchery, as is the secondary jester figure imbibing in what’s left of his bottle.  But it’s difficult to make out all of the other objects- at least on my screen.  No doubt this piece is best viewed as a large physical object.  The stacked cake suggests brick and mortar as a result of the decorative patterning- I’m wondering if this is intentional?  It appears as a tiny fortress between the figures, acting as a beacon, protruding from the copious banquet.  The candles could also be included as part and parcel to the dining experience, but because of the darkened value pattern have a slightly ominous or cautionary presence.