Inherent Vice – The Darkest Shade of Pale
Oil on canvas, 40” x 30” (102 x 76 cm), 2020
This painting was inspired and dedicated to the great Tom Pynchon (may you sail well, dear Big Man, wherever you are; this work will be the link between you and me, and big thank you for the joy of reading your books).
The idea for this picture is dark, the darkest, and it was not big fun developing it, although, I have to admit that I did have some sparkles of pleasure or, should I say, pride, while reflecting on so many wonderful things that the humanity achieved over the time. However, in the final equation we have failed, and that is the sad message of this work. Something seems to be wrong in the human DNA – the destructive gene is not only acting against other species and things; it also is suicidal.
The humans, bastardized towards amphibians, like as being thrown from an enormous Petri dish into the vast nothingness after an unsuccessful experiment, are drifting away. No matter for individual brilliance it’s the statistics that is killing us. The survival is not individual’s task. Let’s end with the beginning – “it is too late. The Evacuation still proceeds, but it’s all theatre”.
There are many details here that are directly related to T.P. (magenta and green, the title, the image from the cover of “Gravity’s Rainbow”, binary coded beginning of the same book, etc.), but there are also the details pointing to other great human achievements (music, literature, science, art) as well as variety of pleasures, variety of codes (including the barcoded year of signing of the painting). Starting with T.P. the dedication stretches to many more people whose names will be recognized by closer inspection of the details. The coding has quite a big presence in the painting, but I don’t think the viewer should decode every single code – all those scriptures bear different roles in the image, including the textural role. (It partially depends from what distance the picture is being observed: from 10’ distance most viewers will see the texts as a texture, when closer they van read the text, and after all try to understand it).
After a year or so working on and off on this painting I finally signed it on a very interesting date: 02/02/2020.
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