The Red Guard 1986

Curator: Desmond Morris's "The Red Guard," executed in 1986 using acrylic paint on canvas, presents a strangely compelling composition. Editor: My immediate reaction is one of surreal disquiet. The uncanny valley effect is strong with these figures and objects populating the starkly lit scene. There is a strong sense of artificiality; an almost dreamlike, constructed reality on display here. Curator: Indeed. Let us consider the formal arrangement. The picture plane is horizontally divided, creating an expansive, unnervingly smooth green field contrasted by a gradient midnight blue above a distinct hard-edged horizon line. Note how the scale is distorted – the full moon seems intimately close. Editor: That enormous moon looms large in the psyche, a recurring motif that’s often connected to emotional states and unconscious drives, certainly heightening the dramatic impact of this uncanny expressionist vista. Curator: Absolutely. And, examine the insistent perpendicularity; rigid planes of color anchor the composition. Repetition also reigns. Consider those bizarre, pod-like characters. Editor: These ambiguous figures clearly embody themes of identity and social roles. The artist calls our attention to that strange figure with its own megaphone. Is that individual communicating an authoritative message of some kind? The very title suggests an observation of order or authority imposed upon a landscape. Curator: It underscores the pervasive tension in color usage. The near-fluorescent primaries lend to that tension, which create a stark visual drama; a constructed visual field devoid of nuanced blending or modulation. Editor: Precisely. Considering Desmond Morris's background in zoology and ethology, could the composition reflect some form of social commentary conveyed through symbols? Curator: An astute observation. The structural severity combined with bizarre organic forms leads me to understand the scene as symbolic—a structured landscape populated by stylized, expressionist beings, suggesting underlying tensions. Editor: Indeed, reflecting on “The Red Guard”, one grasps an eerie tension between an order and a bizarre vision. Curator: The work stands, then, as a curious expression of anxieties – a moment suspended somewhere between dream and stark waking reality.