Unfulfilled Prophecies 2019

Curator: Right now we're standing in front of "Unfulfilled Prophecies," a 2019 oil painting by Michael Cheval. My first thought: utter bewilderment. What *is* going on here? Editor: Chaos, darling, delicious chaos. A king in his finery looking utterly bummed, a crown ditched in the dirt, a baby lion inexplicably perched on his head... it’s as though someone tipped over a toy chest filled with the remnants of half-remembered dreams. Curator: Cheval often works in this vein, creating what he calls "aporism" – images that defy simple explanations. It's a world where logic takes a back seat to feeling. Notice the almost dreamlike rendering? How would you relate to what's going on symbolically? Editor: Well, lions traditionally represent courage and royalty. Here, though, the lion is just a cub and looks equally perturbed! Maybe the prophecies weren’t quite ready for this young royal, placing this crown besides a very obvious and neglected, unfulfilled expectation. The surrounding figures, almost like ancestral portraits or phantom advisors, seem trapped in their own little bubbles, disconnected. Curator: Precisely! There is an obvious symbolism in each element used to illustrate something deeper at play than an outer layer, for me what makes this particular picture interesting are the characters surrounding our apparent Royal and the almost menacing machine at the far end; that makes this picture unsettlingly exciting. Almost foreboding… Editor: Indeed! Speaking of, is that a meat grinder next to those innocent-looking daffodils? Charming! But flowers themselves also have meanings. A burst of light in an otherwise gloomier picture; a hopeful note. What do you make of the musical instruments scattered about? It could hint that the king will have to play many roles and be able to be more multifaceted to finally reign? Curator: I hadn't thought of it that way, but now you point it out…there is an overall sense of harmony missing: the bagpipes silent, the horns muted. It really adds to that atmosphere of anticipation or delay, like a symphony that hasn't found its conductor. This one is fascinating in how it draws you into a complex web of possible readings, wouldn’t you say? Editor: Absolutely. It invites us to make up our own prophecy, fulfilled or otherwise, and that's a generous act on the artist's part.