The Challenger Explosion 1986

Adam Caldwell’s painting, "The Challenger Explosion", uses oil to layer nude figures with imagery relating to the Challenger disaster. The painting isn’t so much about rendering an accurate depiction of this historical event but about exploring what it might mean to us now. The paint is applied in a variety of ways, from thin washes that allow the canvas to peek through, to thicker, more opaque passages that describe the forms of the figures and the plumes of smoke. There are moments of high detail and naturalism, such as in the head of the first figure, contrasted with areas of almost total abstraction, like the top right corner. These juxtapositions create a sense of tension and unease, which resonates with the subject matter, but also speaks to the way that we process memories. It makes me think of Gerhard Richter's paintings based on newspaper clippings, where the image is both present and dissolving at the same time. In Caldwell's painting, as in Richter's, the image hovers somewhere between representation and abstraction.