ART DESCRIPTION
This work is an abstracted portrait from the Is Is It portraiture series of 2006-2011. Based on an Old Master painting, Barry Kamen has abstracted the portrait in a way that obscures the face of the sitter, although the stance of the figure remains intact. This means that the identity of the sitter (whether it be a King, a Pope or a Nobleman), becomes secondary as we instead are invited to examine the power dynamics present in a portrait such as this. The painted pink adhesive plaster (which functions as a signature in his work) and the ink-stamped target motif that has been added as collage, invites the viewer to examine the forces that are at work behind a portrait of a rich and powerful figure. The plaster motif often denotes harm in Kamen’s work and he often uses it to obscure the faces of the monarchs and powerful people he depicts; a possible examination of power and those who it is harmful to. Fluidly sliding between the abstract and the figurative, layered using repeated two-letter words and phrases written or pasted onto the canvas, either freehand or pasted from the day’s newspaper, these works use a limited palette of greys, whites, blacks and pinks.
OTHER WORKS
