ABOUT THE PAINTINGS OF KEVIN MELCHIONNE
Obelisks, cairns, and pagodas, yet also highways, satellite dishes, and billboards? Why the combination?
The landscapes are places of retirement for monks, hermits, and poets. But they can also be seen as development sites managed by regional tourist coordinators and provincial highway engineers seeking improved access to ancient pilgrimage sites or modern cell phone towers. The images are romantic constructions, full of follies, promontories, and prospects. These tropes of romanticism stand alongside retaining walls, radio towers, and billboards.
It is as if the scenes were to be prepared for a fête galante on a warm summer evening. But, instead, they have been hastily decorated with lines of pennants more commonly seen at auto dealerships. My paintings are attempts to conjure the yearnings of romanticism in the context of a world which can’t always rise to the occasion. So the celebration may have romantic ambitions but the decorations have been provided by a party supply super-store.
|
|
