cranium

Comment

Comment by Resident Curator on August 18, 2021 at 1:05pm

Curator’s Comments:  

 

Cranium attracted my attention today, with my first reaction as one of appreciation of macabre beauty, and then secondly of humorous irony.  The strong iconographic nature of human skulls to convey memento mori can be subverted, as of course you have here.  The inclusion of the plastic goggles makes the “smiling” skull whimsical, and almost cartoonish.  The title Cranium reverts back to a didactic or scientific description, challenging the viewers’ context for the anatomical artifact.  Formally, the blue-green surfaced ground runs interference to the centrally aligned subject matter, breaking up both the positive and negative space to create fluid visual movement and textural interest.  It somewhat softens the message.  It’s also interesting to compare this piece to Red Hunting Trophy, that I admired and commented on some years back. Whereas I marveled at the ambiguity of form in the slight obscured abstraction of Red Trophy, the directness of Cranium now holds appeal. Both belonging to the folio aptly entitled A Matter of Life and Death, the viewer likely experiences different levels of emotional detachment between the human and animal skulls. Perhaps the goggles are an important foil to our confrontation with mortality, and allow us to enjoy the image while distancing from the inevitable.