Doctor Faustus 

Curator: Maddox's "Doctor Faustus," a painting realized through watercolor, pulls us into a realm where the familiar rules of perspective and proportion seem to dissolve. The piece reflects themes of figuration alongside the language of abstraction. Editor: Well, it's unsettling. The colors, those elongated figures… a distinct sense of unease hangs in the air. It’s reminiscent of a dream or a slightly warped memory. Curator: Let's look at the materials first. Watercolor is an intriguing choice, often associated with lightness and spontaneity, yet Maddox uses it here to evoke something darker, perhaps tapping into the quicksilver nature of temptation itself. I see a fascinating push and pull in technique alone. Editor: The symbolism is potent. That figure perched on the larger one's shoulder, seemingly directing actions. Consider the hats too: Phrygian caps flipped and inverted—symbols of revolution twisted, subverted. Could it represent the inversion of values in Faustus's quest? Curator: Perhaps it is, especially if we contextualize the art’s making alongside Surrealism, when many artists tried to find methods of unlocking the unconscious self in order to bypass what they perceived as an overt sense of control dominating Western cultural life. Editor: Look, even the way the forms bleed into each other, almost translucent, speaks to a lack of solid grounding, maybe moral instability. The background evokes some purgatorial wasteland or alchemical vessel on the verge of overflowing. There are very few hard lines here. It’s quite affecting. Curator: Examining this "Doctor Faustus," it feels that Maddox pushes against traditional boundaries, bringing literary themes into material experimentations, ultimately constructing his version of a timeless story of transgression and longing. Editor: It's left me with a potent impression. There’s a lot to reflect upon—how visual forms retain certain coded values over time, especially when wielded with such potent dreamlike energy.