ARMOUR by Spencer Chalk-Levy - 21/04/18-12/05/18
Obsessed by strange bodies and faces, often portrayed in such intensity that I would allow myself and say, it scans the multi-layers of the painted subjects, revealing its raw sexuality, when even unintended. For his solo show Armour, dogmatically there is an intersection of Armour (protective shield) and the French word, Amour, for Love. Cupids arrow charged with lust, passion and desire haven't surpassed any mortal creature that has walked this Earth; becoming victims of this ultimate feeing/sensation/state of love, shared or rejected, twisted or distorted, the drive of love has longtime been inscribing the human history by its secret agenda of sexuality. The exhibition becomes a wheel of passage of time, a sort of calendar depicting faces, races, genders and unknown figures of age, marking the calendar of the human life passage via the erotic experience, where it´s language becomes a poetic, even grotesque, expression of the primal desire to explore, feel, compel the senses to their maximal capacity and potential. Mystification, beyond the physical and the mortal, is indeed a cosmic desire that keeps us searching in life. Armour comes as a protective shield, but also places the subject/object of desire under a shade of privacy, being hidden that once witnessed or exposed to the common gaze and become public, will carry the glance as a sin corrupted its beauty by the eyes of the beholders. In introspect to the present, the Armour is being held and given to any artist to use in need of a possible attack by outside forces. In this micro residency the artist will bring into play varied techniques and materials bringing together woven tapestry, Styrofoam and cardboard to create the scene that suggests the mythological connection of human´s attachment to the vital sentiment of past, present and future loves.