Dude Descending
a Steer

Dude Descending a Steer #1
or Rite of Passage
21 x 17 x 24"
Here some semblance of the human form is maintained in a sequence of expressive gestures that track the descent of a young cowboy to a place where his real or imagined metamorphosis into manhood suddenly happens, apparent about halfway down.

Dude Descending a Steer #2
or Passage Denied
13 x 9 x 15"
In this work the young cowboy is also tossed but this time he descends totally into the dissecting machine of a cubist where the multiple convoluted forms spawned in the work turn on the subject matter for a takeover.  They consume, dismantle, and dismiss it.  He is not seen again until he drops out the bottom, somehow, in one unhappy piece.  Unlike the figure in "Rite of Passage" he does not give double thumbs up.

A friend once remarked "I don't know much about cubism, but isn't it usually ugly."  Of course that's not inevitable.  Cezanne who opened the door to cubism with his village of translucent squares and triangles painted a sort of hieroglyphic that speaks, I like to think, "village" to the heart. 

But to sit before a cold-eyed cubist or any analytical type who does not check himself might be like sitting as a frog before a curious boy with a scalpel;  a boy who wants to know everything about "frogness," everything that is but a frog, a particular frog with a life worthy of some particular courtesy.

Both works are pure slapstick, cubestick, if you like.

#1 Rite of Passage

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Detail

#2 Passage Denied

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Copyright Jim Malecky.  All rights reserved.