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DAVID FLORIMBI
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Kuspit Essay
David Florimbi’s Painterly Figuration
by Donald Kuspit
Figure after figure, many bizarre, among them the portentous “El Caudillo, 1998 and the enigmatic “ Floater #2”, 1993, others erotic if troubled, such as the women in “Woman with Finger, 2001-2007 and Touching the Surface, 2002, and others heavenly and sacred in import, like the Woman with Child, 1998 and the figure in Floater III, 2002-2003. Again and again we see central figures floating or suspended in the sky--infinite space, as it were--perhaps most noteworthy in Untitled, 2007, or else hovering above the ground, as in Racing Figures, 1997. There is no question that many of the figures are art historically loaded images. The figure in Untitled can be read as a falling Prometheus, the Woman with Child alludes to the Madonna and Child theme, the figure in Floater III may be an enthroned Madonna, the Racing Figures in the sky allude to angels, and the figure in Floater is peculiarly Icarian. But what makes Florimbi's paintings convincing apart from their quixotic appropriation--ironical reprise?--of traditional motifs is their construction and painterliness. The works as a whole are entitled "Station Crossing," in oblique allusion to the "Stations of the Cross": the disturbed movement of more or less tragic figures, now mythical shadows of themselves, is the subtle point. Read More
by Donald Kuspit
Figure after figure, many bizarre, among them the portentous “El Caudillo, 1998 and the enigmatic “ Floater #2”, 1993, others erotic if troubled, such as the women in “Woman with Finger, 2001-2007 and Touching the Surface, 2002, and others heavenly and sacred in import, like the Woman with Child, 1998 and the figure in Floater III, 2002-2003. Again and again we see central figures floating or suspended in the sky--infinite space, as it were--perhaps most noteworthy in Untitled, 2007, or else hovering above the ground, as in Racing Figures, 1997. There is no question that many of the figures are art historically loaded images. The figure in Untitled can be read as a falling Prometheus, the Woman with Child alludes to the Madonna and Child theme, the figure in Floater III may be an enthroned Madonna, the Racing Figures in the sky allude to angels, and the figure in Floater is peculiarly Icarian. But what makes Florimbi's paintings convincing apart from their quixotic appropriation--ironical reprise?--of traditional motifs is their construction and painterliness. The works as a whole are entitled "Station Crossing," in oblique allusion to the "Stations of the Cross": the disturbed movement of more or less tragic figures, now mythical shadows of themselves, is the subtle point. Read More