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拍品专文
"I like all colours but my true colour is life, a second short of death."
- Geraldine Javier
Geraldine Javier’s initial decision to major in nursing was to fulfill her parents’ wish for her to live a stable life as a nurse. Although she chose to become an artist later in life, the experiences that Javier gained while studying nursing continue to serve as a key source of her artistic inspiration. Drawing from her keen observation and reflection of the myriad forms of life and death presented to her via her patients, Javier’s work often explores and negotiates the boundaries between life and death.
The recurrent theme of life and death in Javier’s work can also be traced back to the experiences of her childhood that were marked by an early and frequent exposure to the reality of death. Growing up in a farming household, Javier was constantly faced with the truth behind the inevitability of death which comes to every living creature. The death of one of her close family members, and the daily sacrifice of the farm animals in service towards the business and sustenance of her family enriched young Javier’s understanding of death as a natural and essential phenomenon of life.
In the present lot, Red is the Colour of Life, and So is Black, red tattling lace emerges from the flat surface of the canvas in the artist’s signature style of incorporating textile elements into her works. The refined mastery and craftsmanship required in working with such delicate materials serves as a testament to Javier’s technical competence as an artist, while also realizing her desire to subvert received associations with certain images and objects. Lace, commonly associated with homely comfort and predictability, is in this context dyed a blood red colour, and suggests discomfiting notions of bodily organs breaking through the surface veneer of painterly finish.
Playing on the notion of duality, Javier presents life and death as two sides of the same coin. Encapsulated most clearly by the depiction of twin girls – iconic characters in popular culture from director Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 film The Shining – the painting is replete in contrasts and repetitions. At first glance, the blue dresses, wallpaper, and panels on the left and right of the canvas make this a seemingly symmetrical composition. A close inspection of the painting however shows variations that disrupt this illusion. The varied expressions of the girls (one intensely staring while the other genially smiling), the uneven placement of the black-bordered windows of lace tattling along the wallpapered walls, and the differing density of lace tattling in the side panels intrigue the eye as Javier encourages the viewer’s gaze to dart back and forth to identify the similarities and differences across the invisible boundary we instinctively impose down the centre of the painting.
Coming from a series of Javier’s works exploring the concepts of fiction and storytelling, Kubrick’s The Shining serves as a fitting source for Javier’s appropriation. The film’s protagonist navigates a labyrinthine house that is revealed to reflect the inescapable and degenerating madness of his mind. Victims of a brutal murder, the deceptively innocent twins are malicious apparitions who roam the house indefinitely and exist on a liminal plane between life and death and are able to interact with living characters. Just as the central narrative of the film questions whether events are taking place in reality or in the mind of the protagonist, Javier too hopes to challenge the perceived opposition of life and death through her art.
Where red and black are colours that can alternately take on associations of life and death depending on the context, Javier employs them to dramatic effect as they symbolize the simultaneous existence and transgression of boundaries. The clearly defined black squares imposed on the canvas are the very means through which the physical materials of the red lace tattling from the external panels seep into the internal dimension of the painting. The large size of the artwork as well as the expertly rendered perspective of the room within which the twins stand also serves to extends their presence into the physical plane of the viewer.
In Red is the Colour of Life, and So is Black, Javier presents us with an invitation to enter into a contemplation of the relationship between life and death, and of the inevitable way in which death erupts into the surface of consciousness and reality. As the girls regard us with their unwavering gazes, their arms and hands interlock tightly in a reinforcement of our inextricable and everpresent connection to death in life.
- Geraldine Javier
Geraldine Javier’s initial decision to major in nursing was to fulfill her parents’ wish for her to live a stable life as a nurse. Although she chose to become an artist later in life, the experiences that Javier gained while studying nursing continue to serve as a key source of her artistic inspiration. Drawing from her keen observation and reflection of the myriad forms of life and death presented to her via her patients, Javier’s work often explores and negotiates the boundaries between life and death.
The recurrent theme of life and death in Javier’s work can also be traced back to the experiences of her childhood that were marked by an early and frequent exposure to the reality of death. Growing up in a farming household, Javier was constantly faced with the truth behind the inevitability of death which comes to every living creature. The death of one of her close family members, and the daily sacrifice of the farm animals in service towards the business and sustenance of her family enriched young Javier’s understanding of death as a natural and essential phenomenon of life.
In the present lot, Red is the Colour of Life, and So is Black, red tattling lace emerges from the flat surface of the canvas in the artist’s signature style of incorporating textile elements into her works. The refined mastery and craftsmanship required in working with such delicate materials serves as a testament to Javier’s technical competence as an artist, while also realizing her desire to subvert received associations with certain images and objects. Lace, commonly associated with homely comfort and predictability, is in this context dyed a blood red colour, and suggests discomfiting notions of bodily organs breaking through the surface veneer of painterly finish.
Playing on the notion of duality, Javier presents life and death as two sides of the same coin. Encapsulated most clearly by the depiction of twin girls – iconic characters in popular culture from director Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 film The Shining – the painting is replete in contrasts and repetitions. At first glance, the blue dresses, wallpaper, and panels on the left and right of the canvas make this a seemingly symmetrical composition. A close inspection of the painting however shows variations that disrupt this illusion. The varied expressions of the girls (one intensely staring while the other genially smiling), the uneven placement of the black-bordered windows of lace tattling along the wallpapered walls, and the differing density of lace tattling in the side panels intrigue the eye as Javier encourages the viewer’s gaze to dart back and forth to identify the similarities and differences across the invisible boundary we instinctively impose down the centre of the painting.
Coming from a series of Javier’s works exploring the concepts of fiction and storytelling, Kubrick’s The Shining serves as a fitting source for Javier’s appropriation. The film’s protagonist navigates a labyrinthine house that is revealed to reflect the inescapable and degenerating madness of his mind. Victims of a brutal murder, the deceptively innocent twins are malicious apparitions who roam the house indefinitely and exist on a liminal plane between life and death and are able to interact with living characters. Just as the central narrative of the film questions whether events are taking place in reality or in the mind of the protagonist, Javier too hopes to challenge the perceived opposition of life and death through her art.
Where red and black are colours that can alternately take on associations of life and death depending on the context, Javier employs them to dramatic effect as they symbolize the simultaneous existence and transgression of boundaries. The clearly defined black squares imposed on the canvas are the very means through which the physical materials of the red lace tattling from the external panels seep into the internal dimension of the painting. The large size of the artwork as well as the expertly rendered perspective of the room within which the twins stand also serves to extends their presence into the physical plane of the viewer.
In Red is the Colour of Life, and So is Black, Javier presents us with an invitation to enter into a contemplation of the relationship between life and death, and of the inevitable way in which death erupts into the surface of consciousness and reality. As the girls regard us with their unwavering gazes, their arms and hands interlock tightly in a reinforcement of our inextricable and everpresent connection to death in life.