Fifth Element 2015

Curator: Michael Cheval's oil painting, "Fifth Element," created in 2015, certainly has an arresting presence. Editor: Absolutely. My immediate sense is one of dreamlike theatricality, with an unsettling calm despite the absurdity of the scene. Curator: Absurdity is an apt term, given Cheval’s work often dances on the edges of surrealism. Note the careful articulation of form through precise chiaroscuro. How the spheres echo the clouds in the upper register of the work creating vertical lines of visual consistency. Editor: Yes, these repeating spheres undeniably conjure cosmological ideas and a juggling jester, a master of earthly performance, as some kind of conduit of celestial power, bringing harmony and discord into playful equilibrium. A harlequin is usually an acrobat of social critique. Curator: It also seems worth considering the artist's calculated composition; there is great tonal balance in this arrangement, but I see also a dialogue happening between realism and what would ordinarily constitute a "real" perspective, a type of play in the construction of the image. Editor: The clown, often interpreted as a tragic character under its guise of comedy, is seen holding or manipulating these light spheres in this iteration. As toying with planets, but are these really heavenly bodies, or just bubbles of fantasy created from an adjacent bottle, waiting to pop and reveal that reality is much more pedestrian than illusion? Curator: The impasto technique, layering the oil, lends a sense of weight to the ethereal spheres. It’s this interplay between weighty materiality and fantastic subject matter that fascinates me. Editor: A dichotomy reflected also between this figure of pure white facade, masking an emotive being with bold, rich, fabrics like red or green. "Fifth Element", in this sense, can symbolize an interior search for balance, using masquerade as a technique. I'm left with the impression of carefully choreographed tension between order and chaos. Curator: An evocative observation which I believe encapsulates Cheval’s aim of “Inverse Perspective” nicely. I, however, leave more preoccupied with how the art embodies his own particular view, as both surreal, realistic, and theatrical, using line and contrast for a successful composition.