Karin Jurick: Star Gazers

Painting people who are viewing paintings is an appropriate theme for our times. If I were to use a fashionable word to describe it, I would have undoubtedly picked "postmodern." I will settle, however, for "ironic" and "multi-layered" (with meanings).

Though there is a tradition of including paintings inside paintings, this is the first time I witness an example that employs an actual museum setting, where paintings are the main attraction rather than a decoration. By capturing works of art in a specifically designated place, the artist reveals their status of a commodity and of public property. It is not accidental that most of the figures shown in these series have their backs turned towards the viewer: the painting is the model in this piece, and the people inside it are merely the observers.

Moreover, I find this representation as inherently ironic. Interestingly, it echoes the Chinese Boxes narrative methods used in literature. First, there is the celebrated masterpiece, second the people who view it, third there is us, who view the given painting, and fourth, if there's someone who watches us, and who can hold a brush... and so on. Such a layout inevitably puts everything in a perspective -- and puts a smile on my face. Nothing is final, everything is a transmutable shell.

Technically, accomplishing such a painting must be a difficult task for the crafts-person: there is a miniature copy of Van Gogh's "Starry Night" inside the piece. Naturally, one desires to be as accurate as possible. I recognized it immediately, which contributed to the overall enjoyment from this work.

I hope more artists will choose to paint the interior of modern venues: discotheques, book stores, even banks and malls. Such themes carry the freshness of relevancy and immediacy; such they are in our lives, and such they would appear in works of art.