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This picture, completed in the summer of 1995, is too complex to be easily read at one viewing. After the impact of the diagonal composition with its tension between freedom and confinement, the mind is almost relieved to find itself in a sort of astral maze where the subconscious runs riot with its love of the visual pun.
The cruel hellrake hands, nightmare parodies of Adam's benign tools of cultivation, are obvious, as is the Animal Nature of the severed head and the metamorphosis of its lost halo into the cracked lavatory seat; the Red Carpet has been rolled up forever and thrown away, the deckchair broken beyond repair; for there is no peace for the wicked.
But what of the saw thighs? Surely not sore thighs from excessive carnal activity ... or is it the thighs he saw that led to his downfall? Either way the central observation is that the purpose of sexuality has been seriously misunderstood. Note that the phallic pistol is a (dangerous) toy, like the ribaldly dangling and aptly named Diabolo, which can also be read as a symbol for Infinity.
The viewer engaged in the futile (few-tile?) attempt to decipher the foreground runs the risk of becoming Blind to the imminent meeting between the Umbrella and the Sewing Machine, premier protagonists from "The Chants of Maldoror" (Isidore Ducasse, 1846-1870) seminal to the original Surrealist Movement.
The figure that assembles like a mantis from this discarded detritus is at once pathetically entreating and subtly menacing; denizen of a plane where prayer and prey may become fatally confused.
Golva 1996
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