Eugene Carchesio/George Petelin
coversations with the dead just before beginning
An oxymoron is a self-contradictory expression, such as "constrained freedom," "violent peace," "deceptive truth," or "living death". And though it flies in the face of logic it is indispensable for describing contemporary reality. How can one converse with the dead? And what is that misshapen form at the focal position of Eugene Carchesio's composition? How can such irreconcilable opposites exist? Is this a living oxymoron - a creature from subconscious depths that haunts the dreams of the sleeping form below.
This paradoxical monster is a site of danger, that is sure. A cannon points at it, and its alphabet-block environment looks decidedly shaky. But why do those steps next to it lead up to nowhere, contradicting their own function? And why does an energy-concentrating cone balance on every rung? And what about those other reverse stairs at the bottom right that can be read as either going up or down?
Let's follow those second illusionistic stairs upwards. They lead via perfect heavenly geometry to the pyramids - transcendental, wilfully wasteful, hopeful edifices - the paradigm of all humanity's follies. Notice how they merge seamlessly with the world of factories: the no-less-prone-to-foolishness industrial world. And note how this world in turn articulates with the highrise structures of urban life.
It is this life that obviously breeds the monster which we witness under threat of its own hair-trigger environment.
And all of this forms a pattern - a lozenge wallpaper that merges with the three dimensional solids floating suspended by the dream-power of the sleeper. Which portion constitutes our reality? And is there any difference anyway?
That hybrid creature - the very stuff of contradiction... The rest of this article is available to subscribers of Eyeline