Show Must Go On
GLEITZEIT ESSAY
Show Must Go On
W x H (“): 70 x 60 Oil painting on Cotton (dock canvas)
Signed Early Period
(1) Mechanism of Inspiration
From a title or period of painting’s execution it is believed that Paul Jaisini was driven in its creation influenced with a song and the death of its author and singer Freddie Mercury. The interpreting of emotions resulted and transferred by Paul Jaisini in his painting is the unexpected development of the theme of Show Must Go On painting rich in color combination, with dynamic composition, nerve and emotion urging to attempt reading into it’s concept.
At a first glace the picture’s space reminds of an outlandish or even sci-fi landscape with elements that may support the impression: a red sun against a silhouette that reminds a dinosaur.
On the right upper side there is a depiction of what looks like a water tower. The color develops from the front ground’s almost black cobalt blue that changes gradually to the lighter value of blue enriched by additional colors and finally to fuse in a sun light spot in the upper left corner that holds a voluptuous female figure with the bulging thighs. Her position is either gymnastic of erotic. Her figure is touched by some phallic finger and seems to carry little information except being a compositional space brake.
The figure’s configuration is light almost weightless as is she was a balloon navigating the space.
In contrast to this image’s lightness there is another female figure, located below. Her image is independent but at the same time she delineates a right hand of a central man. The reclining female torso of intense transparent red color of stain-glass. This color of transparent red is a highlighting color of the entire picture that is dominated by blue and yellow. The inclusion of such pure sound red fires up, accents and add to the painting its special power. The artist is a great color master developing his composition with complimentary tonal highlights of pure colors and contrasting inclusions that always light up the paintings with additional dimension as multi faceted precious stone that casts color sparkles. It is the established rule for Paul Jaisini, the inclusions of pure brisk color accents.
To justify such pure and intense red in the predominately cobalt composition is a complex task Paul Jaisini successfully accomplishes in SMGO.
The work as most paintings is painted in one go in detection of light and immediate lines that create the whole compositional swirl.
This mode of work in oil called a-la-prima painted without preliminary sketch and sure is the most exhausting way of creation and especially oil paintings.
THE MESSAGE FROM THE AFTER FUTURE
YEARS AGO HE DESTROYED ALL OF HIS ARTWORKS
It will always remain puzzling how is it possible to paint monumental, finished version of a single painting without minimum preparation. In the interview Paul Jaisini confirmed that it takes long time, months if not years to think about future painting. If he is not capable to construct a vision of his future work in his mind until this “vision” occurs, the artist is not ready to paint or if he would persist the result would fail to satisfy the artist.
The notion of having direct influence of the music and events that inspired Paul Jaisini to paint SMGO enter the analysis and to understand the immediate mechanics of Paul Jaisini’s creativity is a challenging task.
What moves him in this particular work to bring out strange, unexplainable images to interpret the signer’s death and the musical tune and poetic meaning of the song with theatrical slogan that “show must go on”?
In the picture the central man is in the middle of composition and picture’s concept as a main figure. As in Forbidden Fruit same is here the man’s figure depicted in a rushing forward movement that could read symbolically and yet remain statuesque. Such duality of being dynamic and still at the same time is always found in the best works of art that can be looked at from different aesthetic points as Rodin’s Thinker, who seemed to be so lively but at a standstill.
In SMGO the central man’s body has an athletic anatomy but also a grotesque exaggerated body part that look like a blown out of proportions phallus, erected from the man’s lower body having no anatomical detailing.
The color serves to divide phallic element in two parts. It enters a figure of a bending down man of light yellow tone. The phallic part of a central man on the point of entering into the bending man’s backside becomes the painting’s red color inclusion with transparent effect of the stain glass.
The central man seems to interact with the other in the internal game that can be physical game of power.
The central man opens his mouth in scream from pain that is caused to him by a double-jawed sward-fish who in turn enters his body from the back.
On the entering the swordfish’s nose is ultramarine and then red.
There is also an interesting image of a grieving profile that fills the space between the shark and reclining woman’s torso.
The sward-fish is moving out of a dark space where scalaria fish of enlarged size demarcates the side of darkness and light.
Corrals in the front ground add more ambiguity to the space with the red color and rounded shaping.
At the right corner there is a third figure of a man who could fit the definition of submissiveness or weakness by the depiction.
Such personages are often found in Paul Jaisini’s works where they find a place to contrast images of the masculine males.
To conclude the count of images in SMGO I should mention a profile with a grotesque dinosaur’s long bending neck. This profile is situated between spatial contrasts of almost black concave opening.
Inside the round enclosure of the neck the space is light but indicative of shaping by the reflexes of light.
The interest to understand the work, the birth of the above-described images and their relevance to the painting’s theme, why and how did they arrive in association with a prime impulse of the artist, his favorite song and sorrow.
As a formulation of the artist’s reaction to the song he liked and death of its singer in the outcoming painting is most unusual.
The painting’s formal quality is complete in its dynamical and color elaboration.
When you try to see the picture in its entirety you see a great contrast of spots, beautiful combination of colors enriched by unusual color choices.
The dynamic development of picture’s space divided endlessly to create vigorous effect of foliage washed by sunlight. The yellow color parts are offset by cold deep ultramarine and refined by bold inclusion of red.
Space of the painting can’t be defined as perspective.
As in most Gleitzeit works space is multi perspective with Cubist principle of space being observed from different angles but at the same time unified by P. Jaisini’s plastical line unlike cubism’s straight angles.
This painting has strong sense of spontaneity with little predictability of the images. The execution of the work holds perfectly an outburst of emotions into a formulation of unlikely response to the initial drive.
Paul Jaisini’s ability to work in a style of direct painting that is loaded with philosophical meaning is a unique gift.
If abstract art is mathematical it is possible to formulate its principal production. In such works as of Paul Jaisini the formula would be with all unknowns.
The artist expresses his deep understanding of social conflict in Show Must Go On uniting images of violence with concept of grief for the lost such as death of a singer who inspired the artist to paint. In this work Paul Jaisini unites the man’s violent act with a concept of “show must go on” that means aggression as a primary purveyor of rebellion and its revolutionary radicalism.
In SMGO the portrayal is of a cry that informs the universe of the raw demands by a man desperate to know whom he is and where is he going.
The title of the song and the painting is a dynamic addition to the concept.
The central man is shown vulnerable as the shark enters his body. It seems to freeze the effect of his outcry by physical threat.
Paul Jaisini reflects in this work the deep-seated fundamental concept. The men had transformed their fear of male violence into a metaphysical commitment to male aggression.
For Freud a criminal act-aggression and death, restrictions, and suppressed desire lay at the origins of human society. He establishes conflict between Eros and Thanatos as a primal, constant human condition. Freud proclaims: “Every individual is virtually an enemy of civilization.”
Humans are unfit for civilization because their destructive urges are antagonistic to the fundamental demands of civilization.
The situation has become particularly dire in modern times, Freud argues for there are increasingly fewer outlets for these urges even as more and more restrictions are imposed. If during time of Surrealist art Andre Breton called the “crisis of consciousness” here is the “crisis of existence”.
The subject of absurdity and extinction of male purpose is not a gender-politicized theme in the Gleitzeit works of Jaisini.
It is an artistic questioning of the potential creativity that is hidden in every man but is restricted by rules and social responsibilities.
And still the artist calls for art to continue, for show to go on even through death.
The portrayal of violence and victimization has the effect of the sacrificial ritual of ancient tradition that is echoed in the painting.Life will go on through death and sacrifice. There is recognition of life within death as well as death within life.
In SMGO the concept of continuance is in the effort that could be described as violent, deviant, inherently shocking. The imagery of the picture focuses on the bonding between paradoxes aged long that were and always will be necessary for creativity, the agony and ecstasy, the violence and sexuality, all inescapable and vitalizing forces of life emphasized in the art tradition. Struggle between the instinct of life and the instinct of destruction is the struggle that the entire life essentially is about.
The picture seems to illustrate what was the Freud’s view of the inclination to aggression to be the original, self-subsisting instinctual disposition in man while civilization is a process in the service of Eros and death, between the instinct of life and the instinct of destruction. This struggle represents and portrays the creation and life. In SMGO Paul Jaisini united the symbolic of fight with transgression of taboo subject of cruelty in human rage with the social purpose to continue creation.
by Yustas Kotz Gottlieb New York All rights reserved
