Wheel of Fortune and Invocation by Flack - Essay Example

Painting Analysis: Compare and Contrast Audrey Flack is an internationally recognized artist out of New York who pioneered photorealist painting. Although she approaches her work with a fascination for the surface illusion, she does so with a unique collage-style approach in works such as Wheel of Fortune (1977-78) and Invocation (1982). Both Wheel of Fortune, a 96 inch square oil on acrylic, and Invocation, 64 x 80 inches also oil on acrylic, are classified as vanitas paintings which explore the brevity of life. Both pieces feature an unrealistic collage of still life items, including a realistic human skull. The items included in these still lifes are not unrealistic in their depiction, but rather in their placement. Wheel of Fortune, for instance, makes any underlying structure impossible to discern while Invocation presents an abstract, dimensionless background. The illusionistic depiction of items such as the human skull, hourglass and nearly burned down candle classify Wheel of Fortune as a vanitas painting while similar images, minus the hourglass, are used in Invocation. Flack employs a full range of hues to produce a trompe l’oeil effect in many of these images. The paintings do differ in the way in which they are compositionally composed. Both use the human skull as focal point. In Invocation, the skull is placed in the geographical center of the painting with all other objects arranged around it. It is given a trompe l’oeil frame over which a paint tube, sitting next to the neck of the skull, drips a steady stream of red paint, and a candle, lit near the left edge of the image, burns. The composition is asymmetric with balance achieved by inversing round forms such as the base of the candle holder and the blooms of the bouquet. Wheel of Fortune, while also asymmetric, achieves its balance through the duplication of the skull. The original skull is placed off to the right side of the painting and becomes partially reflected in the face of a gilded mirror to the left. Further developing a sense of balance within the painting, Flack includes the image of a very small mirror near the base of the original skull, in a sense reflecting the reflector. Without this reflection, the painting would lose a great deal of its unity as the surface is divided diagonally between light and dark images. Both paintings use color to convey meaning. Red is used to surround the skulls, indicating both the vitality of life, in Invocation, as well as the quickness of death, in Wheel of Fortune. The juxtaposition of this color in relation to the skull provides it with its meaning. In Wheel of Fortune, the color red is seen only in direct connection with the original skull as the hourglass is filled with red beads and topped with red grapes that spill down over the top of the skull. A tube of red lipstick is opened at the top of the skull, not seeming to have any relation to it other than to increase the irony of life in such close proximity to death. This red element within the painting is contrasted sharply with the cooler left side of the painting. Blues, whites and soft yellows dominate here, giving these elements a sense of lifelessness that contrasts sharply with the vitality of the lifeless skull. While these colors reflect the somewhat warm hue of the skull, maintaining a semblance of color balance, they also serve to make the left portion of the painting less alive than the right. The inclusion of a realistic photograph in the upper left corner further mocks the sense of life and permanence while introducing just the right amount of red to this corner of the painting to keep it balanced. In contrast, a great deal of the red found in Invocation is found in the auxiliary items. Here, the skull is given a cooler appearance with additional blues and brighter whites while the background adopts more warmth in the unassigned reds and yellows of the atmosphere. Brilliant reds are also used in the satiny ribbon floating aimlessly through the left and reds and pinks are used to illustrate the blossoms of the flowers bunched around the skull. As has been mentioned previously, red paint is seen to drip down from a tube placed at the neck of the skull. The contrast of the warm energetic background with the cooler image of the skull and blue candle, placed within the light-colored trompe l’oeil frame and matting makes the painting pop, giving it a sense of life and motion that is missing in Wheel of Fortune. The eye is kept moving trying to trace out the various forms which often seem to have no rhythm or direction but nevertheless keep the eye in motion as it traverses the image. The inclusion of shadows cast by the frame, the candle flame burning over it and the red paint dripping upon it all serve to give the piece a greater presence, adding a sense of depth without actually deepening the image. Both paintings are oil over acrylic. This technique provides the paintings with strong, vibrant color in the acrylics while also enabling the artist to add translucent nuance to the various items depicted. An example of this can be seen in the skull of Wheel of Fortune, as the creamy patina on the crown of the skull conveys a sense of dead whiteness as well as a strange sort of inner energy and personality. This is also apparent in the subtle and misdirecting shading of Invocation, giving the piece a surreal effect in keeping with its theme. In both of these paintings, Flack presents a precarious balance of forms and colors that speak eloquently about the give and take of life in all its brevity. The human skull is made to represent both life and death as it becomes surrounded with vibrant colors and images yet also contains obvious connotations of death and decay. In Wheel of Fortune, Flack’s use of color, separated on an almost perfect diagonal from upper left to lower right, demonstrates a division between life and death in which one is reflected forever into the other. In Invocation, she shows an integration of life and death as everything becomes one through a careful interplay of colors, blues reflecting in the eye sockets and yellows off the cheeks of the skull. In both paintings, Flack explores the relationship of life and death with differing conclusions yet the same energy and focus, the same color palette and many of the same structural elements. Read More