Ilana Savdie: Radical Contractions

This painting is inspired by Francisco de Goya’s etching Aguarda que te unten (Wait Till You’ve Been Anointed) from 1799, in which a goblin and a one-eyed woman hold down a billy goat attempting to fly. The figures are shown covering the animal with an ointment, perhaps suggesting that it is in a phase of transformation from a previously human form. Savdie abstracts Goya’s scene by creating sinuous shapes that grip and pull on each other as they ascend toward a field of blue beeswax. An eerie figure lurks above, seemingly taking in the spectacle.