Resurgere e Renasci 1986

Curator: Before us is Bo Bartlett's "Resurgere e Renasci," painted in 1986, rendered in oil paint. Editor: It's…dreamlike. Simultaneously unsettling and serene. A sky filled with, what, are those bodies forming the shape of a tree? The bodies look tired, heavy and very intimate. Curator: Indeed. Note Bartlett's manipulation of classical allegory through the female nude—traditional high art conventions, really. The production itself involved meticulous preparatory drawings and underpainting to get that smooth, almost photographic finish, like a pin-up magazine feel to the skin-tones, despite the strangeness of the image as a whole.. It is fascinating to me, the connection with mass produced commercial images here Editor: It definitely hits this nerve—makes you ponder about women's bodies and our place within art in the 1980s. The academic rendering clashes with that slight surreal twist. It's like the cover of a science fiction novel somehow landed into the halls of a fine arts museum. What’s with the title? "Resurgere e Renasci", some type of rebirth? Is it cyclical? The same bodies rising again into a surreal, dreamlike state. Curator: Absolutely! The title signals a rebirth or resurgence, doesn’t it? Juxtapose this title with the tangible labor Bartlett invested in crafting it and the historical context surrounding representations of female sexuality in art. He appropriates themes of classical painting into what feels a commentary on our perception and objectification. Editor: I'm now also questioning, is the landscape below a battlefield of sorts, with smoke trails and an earthy pallete. Are these nudes literally rising up or emerging after some type of great trial, in what could be described as academic, or even biblical fashion? Curator: I hadn’t made that connection! Look at how he contrasts the industrial landscape with a rather fertile arboreal configuration comprised of nude bodies, rendered meticulously using old methods. The industrial context clashes, yet complements and subverts our traditional understanding, perhaps of life and death, as well as high and low culture. Editor: Well, that’s food for thought, if you ask me! The clash, or perhaps, harmonious chaos…quite unforgettable and quite unsettling in many good ways. Curator: An exercise in materiality and conceptual provocation, absolutely.