Charon 2016

Siegfried Zademack painted this work, Charon, using oil paint on canvas. The traditional technique lends a classical feel to the subject, yet the scene is undeniably strange. Here, a nude male figure is navigating a landscape not of earth and water, but of cast-iron weights. He steps carefully from one to the next, his balance maintained by a long pole, also made of wood, perhaps even a broom. More weights orbit him in the air, as though he is somehow generating them, or they are the detritus of some unknown labor. The work is fascinating for the dialogue it creates between the figure – classically rendered, but posed with his back to us – and the industrial objects that surround him. These have an incredible presence, due to the artist’s attention to their texture, weight, and form. Ultimately, Zademack compels us to consider not only the content of the painting, but also how the material of the oil paint and cast iron weights shapes its meaning.