| Reviews
The women of Nicolas Gracey's paintings do not feel worthy enough to stand. They crouch and sit in contrition, shame and melancholy, but remain stoic in facial expression as if inured to the inner travails suffered by the holy or contemplative. Their beauty is no consolation. Beauty, at least of the physical sort, is trivial to them. Perhaps they are not even aware of their beauty or see their beauty as burdensome. The limbs and bedsheets they cover themselves with seem vain attempts to bate their feelings of vulnerability, or perhaps Gracey felt any further bodily exposure would be too distracting.
Gracey places his subjects in environs that are abstract and symbolic. His use of bright colors is at odds with his subjects' woe. It seems as if the subjects are tragically trapped in illusive prisons of their own making. The world is not as menacing and one is not as guilty and inept as one may perceive. It is evident that Gracey sympathizes with the women in his paintings, and so his works are an encouragement rather than a rebuke. The women look beautiful in their pain, however, and the viewer may have conflicting feelings about them overcoming their troubles.
-Eugene Hwang
|
