The Muses
Statement:
Dancing at the Edge of the World: The Muses Series, 1992-1995, is an appropriation
from Andrea Mantegna's painting, Parnassus (c.1469). It is an attempt to connect the past
to the present. It seeks to add and combine contemporary issues such as painting handling,
spatial invention, feminist commentary, etc.
(e.g. Women Walking on Water, Women Walking a Pink Tightrope, Snake in the Grass).
The mythological muses in Mantegna's painting have been transformed in height from twelve inches
to five feet, making them life-size figures. The descriptive Renaissance landscape has been
changed to the deformed grid of Gridlock No. 1 and Gridlock No. 2--there is no escape from these
cubist boxes. The concept of Finished/Unfinished is sacrificed to process, revealing the
layers and stages of the development of a painting. In Baroque Invention, Mantegna's pastoral
setting is altered to create the drama and theater of the baroque with monochromatic chiaroscuro.
In X-Ray Invention the painting depicts what it might have looked like if it were to be
x-rayed (which it has not). It addresses that particular art history technology and mindset
that continuously seeks authenticity.