Crucifixion/Cadaver Exquisito – A Dedication to Francis Bacon

As the title entails, this piece is meant as a three-dimensional dedication to the painter Francis Bacon. One of his crucifixion paintings inspired the figure, as well as the intent of the base from which it hangs. The base is alike to the kneeling bench in catholic churches, both in color and in padding, and at the same time, shape wise, it is like the hook from which poultry hangs. I’ve always found myself extremely interested to Bacon’s commentaries on life.
I find him to be a ‘‘true realist’’, in the sense in which he looks at humans as just a beautiful, and at the same time horrendous, compilation of skin and bones, not any different to an animal in status or design. Bacon’s technique might not be realistic, but his ideas are as real as it can get. The decision to use animals (= monkeys, chimpanzees, dead poultry) in his crucifixion scenes just strengthens the idea of no status difference; they are worthy (or condemned) to suffer the same ways we do. As I interpret it, Bacon saw us as exquisite corpses (cadaveres exquisitos), not as in the surrealist collaborative artistic method, but as beautiful and complex moving cadavers who work in surreal ways.
These piece is part of a show, the Miniature / Micro-Monumental, in the Townsend University as of now, and until the beginning of November. After that they will come back to the University of Delaware together with other student’s work from Townsend and displayed here. Hopefully the show will make their way to Asia afterwards, to both Thailand and Japan.