Michael Bevilacqua
Remains of the day
30.08.07 - 20.10.07
Michael Bevilacqua’s paintings are like visual diaries – a collage-like mix of various remains of the day. Thus his current exhibition at Galleri Faurschou, is titled “Remains of the Day”, an exhibition that displays new aspects of the young New Yorker’s artistic work.
In Michael Bevilacqua latest paintings different fairytales have been a source of inspiration. We meet Snow White, lying lifeless from the old lady’s poisonous apple. Also present is Alice in Wonderland with eyes wide open, her legs spread and wearing childlike striped stockings, yet with oversized female sexual organs. In addition to this, traces of the fictive, evil villain Fantomas. Its children’s fairytales, yet not suitable for children. The remains of the day are transformed into something disturbing, resembling the night side of human consciousness.
In the past years, the flat, sharp edged figuration and the numerous references to popular culture, characteristic of Bevilacqua’s early works, have gradually been replaced by his increasing desire to test new painterly techniques and explore a greater complexity and openness in his compositions.
”Remains of the Day” is a continuation of Michael Bevilacqua’s experimental work, playing with effects of darkening and erasing the earlier stages of the paintings, which is also a characteristic of his previous exhibition ”Black Studio”. It is the hidden layers working – as they might do in human mind at night while we are sleeping.
There is something alarming and uncomfortable about the way representations of the evil and scary from children’s literature are juxtaposed, in dark colours, with death and sex as an undercurrent. The Freudian concept of”Das Unheimliche”, the”un-homely”, comes to mind, which is when things from the trusted and known suddenly becomes a threatening other. ”Das Unheimliche” is the repressed being expressed, when the border between fantasy and reality is blurred.
Bevilacqua applies these two layers in his paintings and uses the poisonous apple as a recurring symbol in several paintings. In the fairytale it is temptingly promised that one bite of the apple will make all your dreams come true. This promise comes true for Snow White who in the end lands her prince. In our current reality, according to Michael Bevilacqua’s paintings, the apple is the symbol of life with all its tests and trials.