Julia Dubsky
Fictions of Modesty Part fig leaf (a symbol of modesty) — part ‘fig.’ standing for ‘figure’ — or abstract mark (‘ein Fleck’, ‘a stain’ in German) — in these paintings I have been dealing with expectations of dominance. The figure-ground relationship is complicated intuitively by reversals of perceptive depth. The difference between red (protrusive) and blue (recessive) lends itself well to such inversions and the restricted palette provides a uniforming putti to chew and remould over time and layers. The variety of pigments used have differing biases of temperature and hue that act like false friends in translation, wherein language doesn’t continue as expected, and the pace of interpretation is slowed.
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Art historical references, such as a detail of wallpaper from a painting by Edward Vuillard, act as a point of departure together with Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s 19th century feminist short story, ”The Yellow Wallpaper”. The painting “Fictions of Modesty”, is named after a book by Ruth Bernard Yaezell with this title, that deals with the modest heroine in English literature from the late 17th to the beginning of the 20th century. The jacket illustration pictures a painting by James McNeil Whistler of a woman in a white dress. Her dark hair has a slight red glow that might have un-knowingly informed a similar slight colour halo around one of the white shapes, although in this instance it is green.
