Masked Flesh
In my previous post you can see my painting progressing. The face was beginning to become quite mask like. this links back to the main themes of my project as well as introducing a few new ideas.
The vacuum packed meat – covered contained flesh – masking is a type of containing and covering.
It is as if the eyes on the face are set back from the rest of the flesh.
masks – early masked flesh – acrylic and charcoal on canvas.
The idea of a mask brings in ideas of identity.
In a talk done for guests of The Tate, Maggi Hambling comments on Bacon’s ‘Study for Portrait II (after the Life Mask of William Blake’ saying that although the subject is dead the paint makes it an alive painting – this relates back to my comment on Yan Pei-Ming’s ‘Gadaffi’s Corpse’.
Hambling also likens the application of paint to the application of make up.
http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/audio/dead-…
I think that in the way I have applied the paint on the face there is also ideas of covering something underneath which could be interpreted as make-up-like.
