Untitled (Face Farce) 1971

Arnulf Rainer made this "Face Farce" sometime in the 20th century, layering paint on a photographic portrait; that’s his thing, really. The colours are laid on, a kind of bloody gash, obscuring the face, and it becomes about the act of covering-over, a process of concealment. The surface has a photographic sheen, but the red and yellow paint is brushed on top, thick and opaque. You can see the strokes, the gesture of the hand, almost violent. It’s like he's trying to obliterate something, or maybe reveal something else, something hidden beneath the surface. Rainer reminds me of Francis Bacon, in the way he distorts and deforms the human figure. But there's a rawness here, a kind of immediacy that feels very personal. Rainer seems to say, I’m not interested in beauty, I’m interested in truth, even if it’s ugly, messy, and uncomfortable.