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In these paintings I have used the oak leaf at the center in an attempt to play symmetry against asymmetry. Symmetry is a relatively new discovery for me in my Totem Series of the last five years. But symmetry by itself would not do - it has to be offset by asymmetrical elements that attempt to disrupt it. Like the psychoanalytic frame; all kinds of forces play against it and yet it is a reliable structure that one has to contend with. I recently noticed that my attraction for the oak leaf, a seemingly accidental finding, can be explained because the leaf in itself is both symmetrical and asymmetrical.
En estas pinturas he usado una hoja de roble en el centro en un intento de oponer la simetría con elementos asimétricos. La simetría es un descubrimiento relativamente reciente en mis Series de Totems de los últimos cinco anos. Pero simetría por si sola no funcionaría - tiene que ser complementada por formas asimétricas que intentan romper el equilibrio que la simetría provee. Como el marco analítico, todos tipos de fuerzas se le oponen pero uno puede contar con la solidez de esa estructura. Recientemente noté que mi atracción por la hoja de roble, un hallazgo aparentement accidental, se puede explicar por el hecho de que la hoja misma es a la vez simétrica y asimétrica.
Desy Safán-Gerard, July, 1999
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The variations on the Oak Leaf depict the dreamy world we experience on lazy Sunday mornings, when between sleep and awake we drift through alternate universes. The ever-present rectangular portal allows us to enter these spaces, to glimpse them from both sides, worlds free of time or place. The oak leaf, the magic wand conducting us through the door, changes in shape and size from world to world. The portals vary too, five of them with capitals, two without, reminding us that the doors between these worlds are evanescent and variable.
Some canvases devote the larger part of their area to a universe having a greater representational reality - the "real world", in effect. For example, the second painting contains objects resembling flags and shells and sea creatures surrounding the portal to a dreamier universe beyond. Other canvases place the dream world paramount, with fantastical objects dominating the portrait, and the portal giving a peek into the real world.
Three humanoid figures roam these worlds: in one, an angel-like figure observes the sun rising through the portal to the real world; in another, a mirthful "lollipop man" laughs in the dream world; and in the third, a half-headed figure looks expectantly towards the portal back to the real world. These figures give us a spatial reference for our existence while adrift here.
The alternate world idea is found throughout Western art. Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream, DeBussy's L' Apres-Midi d' un Faune, C.S. Lewis' The Chronicles of Narnia, and numerous science fiction writers present allegorical (im)morality tales, with wonders and magic, talking beasts, thinking trees, etc. relating the story. Often the artist hopes to give us a telling look at ourselves, but entertainingly and whimsically, without shining reality's light too brightly. So too, perhaps, is the hope of the Oak Leaf Series.
Brent Bigler, Photographer
Los Angeles, December 21, 2000
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