Welgemeend August Art Month - 2019

20 ROBERT HODGINS A Transvaal Still Life (Thunder Cloud, Mine Dump, Vaguely Ethnic Rug ... ) signed, dated 2000 and inscribed with the title and the medium on the reverse oil on canvas 90 by 90cm Private Collection “Employing the revolutionary manoeuvre made by Henri Matisse in L’Atelier Rouge (Red Studio) (1911), Hodgins uses a warm base colour to flatten his pictorial perspective, challenging the viewer’s perception of space. Moving through the warmer gradations of the spectrum, the painting presents a rose-tinted atmosphere full of glowing forms, described by radiating lines of cooler complimentary colours. Within the interior of this pink field, a lavender thunder cloud casts a gloomy red shadow over the corner of a table of fruit. Outside, visible through a window, a green and yellow mine dump looms. Below this view, floating in a pool of orange, lies a red rug, decorated with green horizontal stripes. Hinged to the upper left of the composition is a closed door, outlined in blue. While the title of the painting indicates the mise-en-scène, a more ominous association is carried by A Transvaal Still Life… As Hodgins confessed in a conversation with William Kentridge and Deborah Bell, the ‘violence I paint is always removed.” (Extract from Strauss & Co catalogue, May 2019)