Daniel Barkley
This painting ("The Flood", 2004, acrylic on canvas, 42"x47") is by Daniel Barkley -- I took the photo this evening as the painting is, glory be to credit limits, on MY wall. I purchased it a couple of years ago.
Says Monika Burman in this month's MAG (monthly art guide) of Mr. Barkley: "Danile Barkley's paintings prove that the human form continues to have the power to take your breath away. ...images...rich with authentic expressions of comtemplation, anxiety and discovery... Barkley recognizes the continuum of great figurative painting and has made a place within it."
Daniel Barkley's show of new paintings at O'Connor Gallery (opens this Friday, 7-9 p.m., but the works are already up) is one of those shows that if I had a sugar daddy I'd be witholding my end of the bargain until I could simply buy all of the 14 or so new Barkley works (save but one piece, which is still a fine painting I just mustn't have it). Literally, I need to own all of these latest works. And yes, mine is an obsession for buying art, but I am discerning, really -- there is far more I hate or that's not to my taste than those that I must have out there. No, I'd buy everything in Barkley's latest show 'cause it's all mesmorizingly fantastic. It is time the National Gallery buys one of this man's works. Pronto.
My other Barkley is a (about 10x30 inches) watercolour on paper,"Study for Icarus I" I can't show you that one as he's off on a wee field trip and unavailable for my camera's lens.
At the same time as the show of new Barkley works at O'Connor (Berkley & Queen Streets, right on the southeast corner, btw) there will be a retrospective of Barkley's older works (he's not old; born in '62) at the Barnicke gallery at the U of T's Hart House -- that show's reception is this Thursday from 5-7 p.m. And "my" Icarus will be part of the show! Cool, eh.
For info on the retrospective at Hart House at the U. of Toronto go here:
http://www.utoronto.ca/gallery/archives/barkley_press.html
I'll post photos of my favourites of the new works after the show's opened. Do make a point to see the new works at O'Connor, if you like figurative art, or if you want to discover just how much you absolutely fucking adore figurative art.
posted by Heipel at
6:58 PM
11 Comments:
both of the ones you mention are brilliant, but I especially love Icarus.
For those of you who've not been to Heipel's lair,er apartment, you won't have seen it, but imagine the young teen-age Icarus, Dad's wings strapped to his body, perhaps he's taking a breather while dad sorts out a few last minute calculations on wind variation. His face has the expression of someone who knows, just deep down knows, that this, with the leather & wood & buckle wings, is not going to end well for anyone.
An expression that is so perfectly captured that it's amazing.
So yah, I, who know nothing of art (figurative or otherwise) will probably drag my arse to one or more of these shows.
Mark! A comment! :) [Inside response, that]
A perfect description of the Icarus painting, lad. Nice.
If his expression communicates some foreknowledge of disaster, it really nullifies the whole point of the myth, don't it?
Well, sure if the painting was meant to simply visually represent the myth, but then the painting wouldn't be Art, it would be a diagram for "The Illustrated Ovid".
Does the myth hold that Icarus didn't know what would happen? or that maybe he suspected but he was following Daedalus's instructions. When finally he's airborne he flies to high because even when flying his overbearing papa is still hollering instructions at him.
(sorry still working through some stuff here).
In Ovid's account, I believe Icarus ignores his father's instructions to not fly too close to the sun -- There's an element in there too of his father not paying enough attention to him because he's distracted or something... I think it's Icarus' general folly, not an overbearing papa that leads to the, ah, downfall, but I can't remember. I'll have to read it again tonight. It's a very short bit, luckily :)
Yes, the whole myth is about overweening pride and ambition. Icarus was getting too close to the gods and he was punished. Sort of a Greek myth of Babel, but with feathers.
As for the distinction you make between art and diagram - not sure that holds true in this situation. If the pointers are explicitly to the myth, any variances from it are to be seen as comment on the original, which is the picture's basis, its substantive canvas, as it were. But there's a problem when that comment negates rather than varies, expands or subverts as you're implying this facial expression seems to.
That simply makes no sense. If I'm reading it right you seem to be saying that that which is alluded to is owed something by the person doing the alluding. No such debt is owed, except perhaps by academics in the search for the truth of the myth's message.
It is completely legitimate that a myth, in this instance, or anything else for that matter is nothing more than a starting point; an idea prompt for an artist. Where it goes from there has nothing to do with the myth's original intent (or the artist's for that matter, that's another discussion about artistic intent and outcome). If you choose to write a poem, paint a picture, shape a sculpture and call it Icarus it need have NO comment with the original whatsoever. Not that I think in this case such a conversation between the original story (as interpreted by the artist, whether that's what the mythmaker intended or what the viewer of the outcome art receives) is not in place--because my interpretation of the face of the Icarus in the painting (and, btw, nary a feather or drop of wax is evident!) is one of innocence, of having no idea what's in store. But that ultimately takes Mark and I to the same place from our knowing side of the painting's dramatic irony, and that's knowing things are not going end well for anyone.
As an aside I've never read Icarus as a story of overweening pride and ambition (on Icarus' part in any event). Youthful folly, perhaps. He got to fly! There's also no suggestion that it was because "he got too close to the gods"(they didn't--don't?-- live up in the sky a la the Christian sense of heaven being "up there") that he died. If it was indeed him being punished (and not his father with the son's death) then it's because Icarus failed to listen to his father's instructions.
I think you're right, about it being his father being punished rather than him, though, you've got to admit, he gets a little punished, too. As for the gods, you're right there, too, though Apollo did pull the sun across the sky every day behind his chariot, so he'd be getting too close to him.
Icarus is, like Isaac, not so much an independent character in this myth as an extension of the main character, his father Daedalus. Where Abraham was being tested, Daedalus is being punished for his presumption. Just as Prometheus was punished for giving man fire, something that was meant only for the gods, Daedalus is being punished for thinking a man can fly. If Icarus knows something's going down - namely, him - it's either an act of separating the characters from each other and making Icarus a real little boy, or an indication of some sort of foreknowledge in Daedalus. Since the latter makes no narrative, philosophical or aesthetic sense, we'll assume it's the former. In which case, Icarus is making a knowing sacrifice. Which means what? That Icarus has some sort of insight into the will of the gods and is willing to be a tool to help make their point? That he knows pride always cometh before a fall but is going along anyway because he's a fatalist?
Meh - sure, maybe.
um, I like the painting in the photo. I bet he's contemplating greek myths. er. not.
Different myth in that painting if the title is any guide...
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