June seria Calendar 2011

Andrey Remnev painted this work on canvas, likely with egg tempera to achieve its distinctive matte appearance. The nature of egg tempera, which must be applied in thin, translucent layers, demands a slow, deliberate process. Remnev evokes earlier approaches to painting, looking to the Renaissance. Yet the content of the work sets up a kind of tension. The figures appear to be agricultural workers in a field. Their tools, which are handmade. There is no immediate sense of factory production or mechanization here, only the quiet, repetitive labor of farming, captured in the parallel lines of the clothing and the long, upward growth of the flowers around them. The contrast of painting style and subject makes us consider the value, and visibility, of the labor shown. Looking at the materials and making of a work like this allows us to think about the full meaning of an artwork, moving beyond traditional boundaries between craft, labor, and fine art.