Richard Orjis: little black flowers grow, in the sky
Starkwhite
29 August – 20 September 2008
There are two images here upstairs at Starkwhite: one is in a new Orjis exhibition; the other is in a stock show.
The old one has been around for a while and is unforgettable. A smeared mud-caked man with pink nose, mouth and chin, stocky pale arms and dressed in orchids, peers at us impassively from behind his elaborate costume/bouquet. He was born of the earth - along with these floral delights - and is a perfect synthesis of man and plant. There is a hint of Archimboldo mixed in.
The new work is even more utterly wondrous. A hairy brown bearded man lies on his back, face up, with his extraordinarily pale, naked baby girl straddling his neck. The image is a transparency in a lightbox so she really glows. Her white skin is unnervingly intense. So bleached it seems supernatural. Dribbly transparent goo is running down her baby chest.
He lies on a dark blanket of blue-grey velvet. His dark trousered legs in the distance form a blurry vee while two lit candles on his shoulders make him into a sort of altar. The luminous child has been sent down on a moonbeam and is an avatar to be worshiped. With such a compelling image how can we refuse?
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