Vermilion Monument (Blue, Violet)
The Vermilion Monuments are double-sided, free standing paintings, each side a reversed view of the same schematic portrait. By combining two views, I hope to suggest an unsettled state: an idea of personage, not a particular person. On one side, the head becomes a sculpture in a landscape held up by thin scaffolding: roadside Constructivism. This side begins with vermilion red and refers to science fiction writer JG Ballard’s Vermilion Sands, a collection of stories set in a fading desert resort whose inhabitants obsess on inessential tasks and peculiar artforms. The reverse side begins with a schematic drawing of a face with two profiles, overtop of which lays a cast acrylic head, partially revealing the layers underneath through cut-outs. In each, a zigzag stair pattern suggests a scale large enough for a person to walk through the head. These works and their single-sided, wall hanging counterparts are especially indebted to the Mask of Sorrow (Ernst Neizvestny), a cement monument to victims of the Soviet gulag. Smaller works sit atop pedestals or tables, and larger works sit on the floor. - Jacob Feige
