Blood Thirsty Savages 2011

Curator: Oh, what a startling composition! The first impression is intense—a potent mixture of fear and, dare I say, allure. Editor: Well, let’s plunge right in. We're looking at Dave Macdowell's "Blood Thirsty Savages," from 2011. It's an acrylic painting offering a contemporary spin on both portraiture and caricature. Look at the deliberate choice of acrylic and its application to convey narrative. Curator: The crimson really grabs you, doesn't it? Its viscosity gives it almost a three-dimensional quality. There's an unsettling paradox at play between this seductive, classical portrait presentation and the lurid splashes, and yet somehow it works. Macdowell certainly grasps formal pictorial balance, but disrupts the surface tension for his own means. Editor: Absolutely. Acrylic allows for such vibrant color, but here it's more about evoking the primal and visceral nature of bloodshed. One might analyze how the 'savage' narrative plays into cultural assumptions and production of fear and desire—themes so frequently packaged for mass consumption. The choice of canvas and the layering of paint also have bearing on how the subject sits. Curator: A potent choice of raw materials to deliver visual force. Speaking to its effect, observe the eyes, those dilated pupils that serve as a crucial point. They are almost piercingly alive amid this charnel tableau—a rupture from the rest of her spectral pallor. Note also how her body and skin contrast starkly, like two opposing signs, one sexual, one ghoulish. Editor: Exactly. And let’s not forget this "portrait" challenges classical fine art assumptions by including not only low-brow, popular "kitsch" associations of B-movie, comic, erotic illustration, but the mode of making, where labor, layering, production all speak to challenging elitist boundaries. How is the artist implicating consumerism, our desires and fears around the act of "seeing" the exotic other? Curator: This has truly revealed multiple entry points into considering intention. "Blood Thirsty Savages" appears as a striking pastiche, challenging traditional beauty ideals in portraiture. Editor: Agreed, a memorable piece which has brought up the intersections of fear, material, consumption, and labor behind one painting.