MASQUERADE
2023 | oil on wood | board size 39 x 46 cm | 15.3" x 18.1" | with frame 52.5 x 61 cm | 20.7" x 24"
‘Masquerade‘ deals with the case of letting down one's guard and revealing one's true self in the face of beauty.
According to the artist, true beauty, art and nature are one. With art being man's way to reveal the beauty of nature, the three are used interchangeably in his work. In Masquerade the subject, a beautiful young man, turns his head away from the mask, that had previously covered his face. Often - as in this case - the mask is associated with hiding and artifice, used to conceal one's identity. Instead the man is turning his head towards the purple poppy flower, revealing his bare face to the spectator in the process. The flower is for one representing the force of nature and its unquestioned and absolute beauty.
However the interpretation of the painting is more ambiguous than might appear at first glance. Convinced that nothing is inherently good or bad, positive or negative and in any way one-dimensional, every element in the painting has been added by the artist in order to both support and negate the previous interpretation. The poppy flower in the broader sense is a representation of nature, but its cultural and medicinal history reveals its usage as an opioid. Starting in early baroque still life painting, the poppy has been used as a symbol of both death and its brother sleep, addiction, delusion and deception of senses. The two latter being closely related to the popular symbolism of the mask. Additionally, the purple colour of the poppy flower is achieved through intense breeding, hence human intervention. The appeal of the flower was thus partially achieved through artifice, the same quality associated with the mask, that the subject appears to have only just turned away and liberated himself from. Furthermore does the possible risk to one's own health and sanity associated with an opioid, reveal the threat posed by over-indulgence.
The mask in the painting is both referencing the pointy masks famously worn by 17th century plague doctors, as well as venetian carnival masks. Whereas the first was used to protect the wearer from contracting the disease, the latter was used to conceal the wearer's identity and provide them with anonymity for the duration of the festivities, Hence the mask, still in use for medical purposes, is not only a tool for disguise but also protection. In the same way the image which we create of ourselves and which we project out to the world can conceal and possibly limit us, as well as protect us from the danger of being exposed to the world.
The painting leans heavily into surrealist terrain with it's depiction of the model as a hovering head without a body. It ends just below the decorative rhinestone embellished collar, belonging to a jacket from the Spanish fashion brand PALOMO SPAIN's 2021 collection. In perfect harmony do the embellishments on the collar align with the ornaments on the mask. The collar's colour however cites the colour scheme established by the background and continued by the poppy. The jacket's Spanish touch, remotely reminiscent of a traje de luces, traditional costumes worn by bullfighters, is underlined by the model's hairstyle. The authentic 19th century gilded frame chosen by the artist has the word Souvenir inscribed on a little speech band at the bottom. ​
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