Artist: Marcia Goldberg
Title: Preposterous Pandemic Abandon in Palos Verdes
Medium: Acrylic on wood panel
Date: 2020-2021
The idea came to me as I followed the news in the summer and fall of 2020 and clipped black and white photos from the Gazette of beachgoers in Southern California congregating oblivious of mask-wearing protocols that we in Montreal were observing with increasing ferocity especially as news came in that the first to die in the old age home here so perversely were the caretakers that had not had vaccinations, did not have enough masks, etc. I realized the “red sky in the morning/sailor take warning” coloration of the beach and sky was at play in my choice of colors. I also felt as the improbable “cannonball” diver on the lower left (who also was depicted in the news on a different day) came into the painting and other “ghost divers” started falling through the air that there was a cautionary tale here taking place–maybe as much a full-scale warning because the numbers of deaths from Coronavirus (and many acts of wanton human behaviour were building towards a “perfect storm” more than just a surrealistic echo of Magritte. I decided to let them fall unfinished, the consequences they have wrought “hang fire,” as it were, suspended in air. I like being able to get a philosophical distance from the story in the pattern.
Even though all these bad news , your creation is not at all dramatic. Thank you to see us this point of view espécialy today le 18 décembre where it as kind of a dark vue for most of us…….