Art Review for a Painting by I.Pesic

Carlos Cortez Koyokuikatl - Untitled Linocut
Art Review for a Painting
by Igor Pešić

This linocut shows a middle aged man in prison, holding a letter and a pen in his hand. It is dominated by both organic and geometric shapes, which are in sharp contrast and painted in a black-white mode with a very strong contrast between the colours. The stripes on his shirt and bars in the background make a lattice-like pattern and the artwork shows a rough and flat texture.

The arrangement is asymmetrical with some shading, mostly on the man’s face and on the bars. The bars, as we can see, are distant from the man so there is an effective illusion of depth. Shading includes a variety of tones of grays. The painting is dominated with lines and high contrast. There is a sense of three-dimensional space achieved through shading, the letter in the foreground, the man in the middle ground and the bars in the background. The artist used the technique of monotype on amate paper.

A title for this picture could be The Prisoner. I can see an expression of protest on his face and I think he will not stop protesting even when he comes out of the prison. He looks very determined. The black and white contrast shows the seriousness of his protest and produces sympathy for his cause. I think that the big idea is about politics. It shows that you should be very determinated if you really believe in something. And even in the bad times we should have faith.

The painting is functional because the artist intended the work to be useful for his political cause. My friends suggested that the painting might represent the protest of an individual against the state. They think that the black and white contrast reinforces the protest.