mother! 2017

James Jean made 'mother!' with what looks like oil paint, though I can't be certain, and maybe more than one medium, in a pretty recent year. I mean, look at the way he builds up the layers in that face, so smooth, almost like porcelain but not quite, it's so delicately rendered. The surface of this painting is like a garden, or maybe a jungle. It's dense, lush, and kind of overwhelming. See how the vines and flowers wrap around the figure, as if they're trying to swallow her whole? Then you see that she's holding something, almost offering it, but it's dripping, flowing with something as dark and viscous as anything I have ever seen. This tension between beauty and horror, it's what makes the painting so captivating, so disturbing. I am reminded of Klimt but also of Caravaggio. Ultimately, this painting is about the beauty and the terror of being alive. It's about the way that life can be both beautiful and brutal, and it's about the way that we're all just trying to make sense of it all, one brushstroke at a time.