Enfilades [ on panel ]

Oil on birch and masonite panel
12 x 9 inches, 30 x 22.5 cm

Enfilades – 1998-2006

After having depicted the containers of art from the outside for a few years, I began looking inside them In 1998 with the series of oils on board (12″x9″), graphite and oil on paper drawings (17″x13″) and wax oil pastel and oil on paper drawings (17″ x 13″) titled Enfilades. In these three series, the museum interiors have taken on a sense of urgent direction. As the title states, an enfilade is an interconnected sequence of rooms opening one into the other. This sequence of rooms, though dating back to the palace architecture of the 17th century, is so common in the museum architecture of the last decades, that I chose it to represent the interior space par excellence of the art museums of today.

In all three series, the directed sequence of rooms, or enfilade, is often accompanied by a movement from darkness to light, or vice-versa. Viewers are not told whether this light is natural or artificial, whether they are being directed towards an open space or a closed one. They have no knowledge of where they are actually going. They can follow their desire to head for the luminous source, hoping that perhaps by entering into the next room they will know more about their destination and journey, or stay where they are, wondering about what is over there. It is for the viewer to imagine and the viewer to decide.