Mixed Messages

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on March 13, 2013 at 4:36pm

Curator’s Comment:

 

 

Mixed Messages is a perplexingly hypnotic image, but I freely admit I’m not sure what I’m seeing.  The prominent mask-like human face has alternating crisp and blurred features, as if I’m detecting a double exposure of a drawing.  I appreciate the digital manipulation has a glossy splintering or rupturing of light waves, as if reflected from a glass prism.   Smoother gradations of value appear in circles above the eyes, like sculptural lenses.  Some of the adjacent modeled areas further imply a liquid state, slightly shifting highlight and shadow. While I enjoy the saturated orange stripe shapes radiating out from the face, the bright white reflections in the bottom section are a bit harsh and unsettling.  They do provide a visual/formal balance to the intense color bands in a strong opposing diagonal direction.  But I’m wondering if the intent was to create a fractured state, or suggest an ideological break from reality.  The non-objective pieces Benevolent Reckoning and Rebirth, without the inclusion of portraits, have a more joyful radiating power. Though they seem less complex in content, I’m still more curiously drawn to the former portrait works.  They resonate with mystery and psychological strain. Perhaps they represent the divergent or conflicted human states that more closely align themselves with the creative process.