This painting excites me. It moves and vibrates. The color is subtle and it is loud in places. The brush marks are frantic yet contained. The painting borders on chaos and neurosis but is so well painted and constructed. Constructed not only by conscious intention but by the deep down psychic unconscious. Some feeling bubbling up from below made this. It looks like it was made in haste but it was out of necessity and it was from a deep place. None of his other artwork in the show looked so daring in emotion, but perhaps the other pieces are more daring in concept.
I just love the reds and the head with just a little red circle for the mouth. The purple gray slashes around the head. The so well tender painted top area and the below area which is dark and bold. Yes, he is holding his penis. It adds to the meaning and story but it mostly adds a hot pink form to the other pinks. I feel the sexuality in the whole painting and not just the sex organ. Look at the drips and the energy about the head. The body in the center is apart from and part of the whole.
Look how organized and regular the crosses in the upper left are, a similar color as the marks around the head. The body is quite centered but the weights around the canvas are so well painted differently and uniquely that the painting doesn’t feel so balanced. Besides the variety in strokes, direction and thickness of the brush marks and paint consistency and texture add so much variety all over the painting. It looks like it was done at one time. I can feel the struggle but it still feels unified and done in one big burst of energy.
I feel the maximum amount of variety in the maximum amount of unity. I feel this in that and that in this.
What do you think?
