SALA Festival 2014 presents another interesting exhibition of new work by Peter Bok as well as stock room access at Bapea.
Details will be posted shortly.
For the moment, last year’s Sala Exhibition 2013 is paraphrased below.
Via Dolarosa
With Via Dolorosa:The Way of the Cross, Bok explores the intersection of a personal history with the politics of religious estrangement. The title of the exhibition plays on the ambiguity of the word way directing the viewer to understand it as manner – the manner in which the Christian Crucifix has been deployed in numerous disguises to achieve political and social outcomes, usually with sorrowful consequences.
“The two explosions detonated near the finish line of the Boston Marathon lead me almost entirely without intention to consider the crucifix as commentary on this global quandary,” says Bok. While the point of departure is clearly expressed, it is predominantly the process of painting itself that defines the work. The crucifix features in all paintings yet often morphs into merely oblique references to it. The associations the crucifix evokes are intentional. At times, however, the sentiment of the series leaves us to contemplate only the resolve of the distilled image – a visual abstraction bringing about a change in perception. “In embracing the crucifix as my vehicle, I thought about a way of working with it to express cultural inflexibility and insensitivity. In doing so, it lead me to scrutinize its inherent design problem. It is either perfectly constructed and balanced or it is clumsy and uneasy.”
“Motivation precedes the image but it is the image that drives inspiration. My intellectual application requires accepting the process.”
