Artists' Artists: Jennifer Packer
Édouard Manet, The Dead Christ with Angels, 1864
Édouard Manet, The Dead Christ with Angels, 1864
I consider the areas that have been reworked in a painting as signs of an artist seeking precision in a disordered house. I am always drawn to the painted gestures that imply – more than truly ever becoming defensible representations of – hands, feet, neck or rock. The feet do not rest, the body does not sit, the hands do not touch. My pleasure is housed in these moments of recognition when discordant parts produce a reconcilable whole, despite the fact that Manet’s attentive toiling has forced the work into a state of disassembly. He is a painter distracted, beguiled by representation.
