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POP BAROQUE

 

The Pop Baroque is pictorial vernacular of objects from 18th century Europe that reinterprets a physiological syntax, transposing the modernist troupes of photography and painting; inverting a still moment to the illusory speed of oil. They ultimately embrace the paradoxical influences of East meets West. The paintings are derived from photographing places, grandiose hotels, or taken from documentation of buildings no longer standing. Other motifs are expressed in Meissen and Sevres porcelains; hand painted French wallpapers, and some with sumi brush notations from contemporary pulp.

Of the porcelain’s, these fete gallant scenes came to represent gestures of awe and flirtation, frozen moments container on the shelves of museums, yet rekindled as objects of desire. Many of these forms emerged from rapid growth of Europe’s merchant trade from Asia, i.e. the Silk Road, the Dutch East Indies Company and more. They sublimate a geo-political aesthetic. My redux appropriates these Chinoiserie themes from the view of our era, one of instability of political cultures and identities; and suspends these sculptural forms to a painterly surface, circling a sphere of influence. The light-hearted images are a visual opiate, a sketch of place where nature and humans folly, caught in a moment of paradoxical times.


Finding Gold, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2006.Collection of Nerman Museum of Art, KS.

Two Heads, oil on canvas, 20x20", . Private Collection, CA

Kissing by the Birdcage, oil on canvas, 30x30", 2005. Private Collection, Washington D.C.

Kissing by the Birdcage, oil on canvas, 30x30", 2005. Private Collection, Washington D.C.

Double, oil on canvas, 32x40", 2008. Private collection, NY.

Dwellings, diptych, 10x10" each, 1999. Private collection, NY.

Courtesan, oil on canvas, 30x30", 2004. Private Collection, NY.

Catching Hare, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2004.

Sip, oil on canvas, 30x30", 2005. Private Collection, Washington D.C.

Touch This, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2004. Private Collection, NY.

May I Read That?, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2004. Private Collection, NY.

Insight, oil on canvas, 12x12", 1999. Private Collection, FL.

Pet, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2006. Private Collection, NY.

Advice, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2004. Private collection, NY.

Riddle, oil on canvas, 30x30", 2000-04. Private Collection, Germany.

One Gift, oil on canvas, 30x30", 2004. Private Collection, Germany.

Tower, oil on canvas, 40x32", 2005. Private collection, NY..

You Were Saying?, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2004. Private Collection, CA.

This Time, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2006. Private Collection, CA.

Run Away, oil on canvas 20x20", 2004. Private Collection, NY.

Monkey Book, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2010. Private Collection.

Monkey Bug, oil on canvas, 20x20", 2010. Courtesy Deborah Colton, TX.