This is an image that I created by hand painting with digital tools a black and white photograph that I originally captured in Maryland in 1991. When I look at this now, after completion, I see the colors of Jan Saudek (everywhere but on the mask), as well as some of his deglamorized view of life.
This is a beautiful, ripe woman, assuming the pose of a playful pinup. But she is streaked with mud, draped in fur, painted somber colors, and hiding behind a mask of sufficient gaudiness to drive home visually how muted in tone all else is here.
This is not a vision of clownish fun. Something has been lost that will not be regained, I think.
1 comment:
Jim,
You say, “Something has been lost that will not be regained.”
I do see something lost and I do see the attempt to cover it (the loss) over, to “put on a face,” as my great aunt might have said. I see the mask as the attempt to get back the smile, to get back the color, to start the cleaning.
In the mask I see the first part of the attempt to regain what has been lost. I see attitude. Sometimes the first step to recovery is attitude. (It is the John Travolta strut from Saturday Night Fever—that strut got him a long way.) To me, that was the beginning of his becoming what he wanted, what he dreamed to become. That is how I see the mask.
My vision today—which of course may change tomorrow—is that she is taking the first step back from rock bottom.
We’ll have to wait and see which way she goes but I am optimistic.
Mike
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