by John Gorman

Artwork Description

Paphos paints her Galatea

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Paphos paints her Galatea. Black chalk, sanguine pencil, tan pulp paper In a lair belonging to an indeterminate but extremely dark age, Paphos’ skin radiates a dazzling white light (I am still thinking of The Baptism of Christ by Piero della Francesca), the splendid figure of the creator, seated on an indeterminate support, and dressed in what look like fishnet and garter stockings, with bracelets adorning her right arm, turns her delicate little head, in a graceful posture, towards her creature, Galatea. This one, to the left of the composition, is extremely disturbing for the witness. Before her eyes become accustomed to the semi-darkness into which she is plunged, and discover that she is standing three-quarters of the way up, her right leg bent and her right arm dangling, this witness may indeed believe he is confronted with a figure gutted from the waist down, like a slaughterhouse piece painted by Chardin. But this is just one more lure into which the artist’s drawing, so complex in its grandeur and simplicity, leads us. A pretty woman à la Manet, therefore, holding her brush in front of a very large frame, and an unfinished but beloved monster, whose skin is kneaded in clay and perhaps still wet although it also seems mummified. A creature out of an infernal and hesitant imagination, the largest frame embracing the whole scene composing her like a wild hair dragging almost to her feet. A sort of Negro or Assyrian totem pole, or even an archaic kora, although the movement she sketches with her legs is more or less akin to the classicism of Ancient Greece. In this drawing, which we find it hard not to call painting, the only artist of the 21st century finds it hard to hide his erudition, his boundless imagination, as well as the incredible brilliance of his talent. Transforming the heroine of an ancient myth into a 19th century Parisian coquette, adding to her, without any hiatus in the composition, a primitive companion in the style of Gauguin or Picasso, but reread according to his own style, he takes us on an infinite journey through the centuries and the history of art, and leaves us haggard, speechless, totally confused… Delphine Costedoat

Artwork Details

Medium: Drawing Other

Genre: Figurative