JUDE SCHWENDENWIEN'S THOUGHTS ON PAINTING OF "DILLON" 7//16

ABOUT GRACE GRAUPE PILLARD'S "DILLON"

Dillon: Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man, oil/alkyd/wood, 2016

This painting is that of an unusually beautiful young man named Dillon. Here is a picture that can only be described as high voltage, a sensational rendering of a young Adonis that burns with an erotic  heat that shocks the eye. Through a graceful rendering of the fine musculature of Dillon's athletic body, Graupe-Pillard's depiction of this youthful man oozes sensuality in an almost startling way. You just can't look away from it.

A golden  skin coloration goes beyond  natural flesh tones to become almost otherworldly, thus adding  to the superior sexiness of the subject. Indeed, the entire painting benefits from high intensity color, such as a seductive opaque creamy  green  that acts as the backdrop for a human rendering that virtually pops out from its flat surface. These exceptional visual qualities came through not only in reproductions but in person as well. Here in a physical  room the portrayal of angelic "Dillon" becomes an almost  tangible being existing on a magical plane of existence, as if one could reach in and touch him; not exactly  in a lustful manner  but as a type of longing to grasp onto that which  is essentially ineffable.

Thus "Dillon" acts as an unexpected homage to youth and brings about the very real acceptance one must have of the very true fact that youth and beauty are eventually fading. Some of the physical appeal of the portrait comes from a human being's sentimental longing for those bygone times and a remembrance of one being in their teens and twenties when they feel almost immortal. Yet at the same time there exists a barrier to the audience  as this young man stretches his forearm close to the edge of the canvas, which in an exhilarating way in real time and space, almost emits pheromones.

Dillon, in a reflection of the times in which he is painted, holds out into space an iPhone to take a selfie a pervasive element of our society which allows people to capture passing moments of their lives  with great clarity. What is unique here is that Dillon never looks at the painter, nor the audience. Instead he is gazing at his own face, almost like Narcissus looking at his own reflection. It is a completely innocent yet ubiquitous gesture  in our "self"- oriented society where, through  this casual yet powerful technology, people get lost in their own passing images, especially the beautiful ones like Graupe-Pillard's almost naive and gorgeous subject. He is all too real, after all.

Jude Schwendenwien

Writer

The Female Gaze, Part Two: Women Look At Men
June 23- September 2, 2016
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Cheim & Read Gallery, 547 W. 25th St., NYC