A slightly inebriated woman leaves her embarrassed husband to dance with a young wounded vet in a wheelchair at a Florida coastal restaurant, while the artist irritates another husband peeved that the artist is taking photographs of his wife.
Tag: painting
Dayenu
The Passover Seder is the retelling of the story of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in ancient Egypt. The Seder (the order) provided the inspiration for this painting.
Diana
A portrait of Fenton’s wife, Diana, soon after retiring from her position as a policy planner for New York State Children and Family Services.
Esau and Ishmael, Morning Evening
Traveling in Jordon Fenton stopped to view the fantastic desert landscape. Two Bedouin also stopped for a cigarette break. Fenton was drawn in by the timelessness of the scene. Except for cigarettes, wristwatch, and power lines in the background, this same scene could have been found centuries earlier.
Gilgulim -Night Sale
Fenton has always admired Rembrandt’s Night Watch but felt that the elegantly dressed soldiers were less militaristic than one would expect. Perhaps the well-dressed soldiers would feel more comfortable shopping at J.Crew than guarding the gates of Amsterdam. Gilgul transmigrates them into the busiest shopping days at J. Crew.
Gilgulim Reunion and Fugue at Poussin Beach
Through the Kabalistic concept of Gilgul (im pl), which is the transmigration of souls through time, Fenton adapts Nicolas Poussin’s Rape of the Sabine Women and weaves it through a banal scene at Jones Beach. Fenton creates high drama just under the surface of an ordinary beach scene or lurking myth interacting with absolute reality. This fugue, with its psychological and musical meanings, becomes the focus of this work.
After the Scream
In the midst of his middle-class life, the nude figure curls up on a sofa almost in a fetal position. He emotes a feeling that is best depicted by Edvard Munch in the painting The Scream. A copy of The Scream hangs over the fireplace. Fenton suggests that the social isolation and the resulting melancholia cause the colors of the figure’s environment to intensify and distort as the nude figure contemplates his life.
After Manet- Gulgilim Luncheon
Manet’s painting Le déjeuner sur l’herbe (Luncheon on the Grass) engendered great controversy and shocked Parisians in 1863. Manet presented a nude female with clothed gentlemen at a picnic. Fenton updates the same concept, showing the ladies undressed and the men in clothes.
Dinner at 8:00
Suicide bombings commonly happen in the Middle East. Americans are mostly oblivious to the pain the terrorist causes because it is something over there, not here. Fenton wants us to imagine the terrible event here to sensitize us to the horror.
Caught
Just prior to an explosive moment!