Resting Tiger 2008

Editor: This is "Resting Tiger," painted by LeRoy Neiman in 2008 using acrylic paint. I’m immediately drawn to the vibrancy and almost chaotic energy. It’s a striking image! What stands out to you as you observe this piece? Curator: Immediately, I’m struck by the tiger as a symbol. Through history, across cultures, it’s meant everything from raw power and royalty in the East to exotic otherness and even destructive forces in the West. How do those inherent contradictions sit with you when you view it? Editor: I can see that tension – it’s powerful but also vulnerable somehow, lounging rather than stalking. It is intriguing because, though ferocious and powerful, there is some passivity there that creates this intriguing paradox. Curator: Absolutely. Consider also the colors Neiman employs: electric blues, deep greens, oranges. He deliberately moves away from literal representation towards a potent emotional expression. The colors in themselves evoke symbolic feelings, challenging our assumptions of this majestic creature. Can you trace how he guides your eyes and emotions using such potent coloring? Editor: I do think my eyes move between the greens of the supposed flora, which give an energetic sensation thanks to their juxtapositions of shades, towards the face and then to the paws... There is almost something menacing in its abstraction that makes the feline even more attractive. Curator: Indeed! Now, what happens when you start considering this work not just as an image *of* a tiger, but as a modern-day icon *for* a tiger? Editor: That definitely gives it another dimension... Thinking of the symbols represented, like those energetic, moving colors to exemplify the ferociousness of the tiger... It seems as if the work epitomises not an animal, but a whole symbolic idea of this animal. Curator: Exactly. LeRoy Neiman is playing with these visual symbols in such a way that reveals, in the end, less of the tiger, and more of our ideas *about* tigers. I wonder how our perspective of these iconic creatures would differ had it been made in classical sculpting… Editor: That is so true. I hadn’t considered it in quite that light, thank you! Curator: And thank you for your curiosity! It makes experiencing these artworks so much richer.