Mermaid

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on April 6, 2022 at 12:34pm

Curator’s Comments:

I was surprised to come across the likeness of what could be Emiliano Zapata in this surreally amalgamated Mermaid figure.  The character appears to be an exquisite corpse-esque combination of iconic Venus and revolutionary snake archetypes sporting an extended wrench arm.  While I don’t recognize the significance of the unsettling hybridization, the unconventional and vaguely humorous result is somewhat of an outlier among your other totally invented creatures. This image seems closer to photographic representation than organically distorted figuration, perhaps reinforced by the low chroma, tonal color palette. While your other paintings include a minimal background space, the tight cropping of the mermaid body puts more emphasis on the contours of its feminine body.  It also occurs to me it could be a detail on a larger, multifigure piece. I do hope you continue to post new work when you revisit the site.  I’d love to see where you’ve taken these inventive forms.