If Battle of Naked Men
has meant anything in the past 550 years, the infinitely well-scribed
contours of Sol Kjøk's contemporary figurative melees
have inherited its significance. However, this battle has transcended
the earthly plane. Ms. Kjøk writes of love, but her images
are not necessarily sexual; at least no more than any other human
image. No, if they are born of love, and therefore evoke love, it
is of a higher order. The elaborate studio rituals Ms. Kjøk
and her troupe of subjects embark upon are not contrived mechanisms
for generating just source imagery, but rather whole-hearted human
bonding. Like a healer inflicting a wound upon himself in order
to achieve
the curing of the same wound in another person, these primordial
processes are the prefix to some genuinely potent gallery medicine.
They are enactments of the sacrament of life, and the drawings are
the encapsulations of those archetypical experiences; a corporeal
elixir to heal our spirit.
Sol Kjøk's images remind us that human existence, like
it or not, is physical. Aesthetic experience cannot be divorced
from its physical origin. Mind and the spirit are inevitably bodily.
And everything, even the experience of spirit, is rooted there,
in the corpus. Kjøk implores us to feel our body, and to
aspire upward, which is as often as not towards each other. In her
most recent work she brings us into the drama by invitation and
implication, expanding the true reality of the work of art as image,
canvas, frame, and space; annexing even the casual gallery guest
as media. She does this, one would have to conclude, with good reason.
In contemplating the swirling multiplicity of bodies in String of
Beads, one arrives at a sense of distinct singularity. The beads,
and the ubiquitous red orb, while serving as effective formal devices,
also beg interpretation. The repetition of the figures throughout
the work echoes that of the arcing processions of beads. There is
a rhythm, a structure, and a heartbeat. It is tempting, therefore,
to conclude that the beads, themselves miniature spheres, represent
two things; the virtually infinite genetic lineage of every human
who has ever lived, and an unstoppable repetition of the crimson
orb, Kjøk's symbol for the body and the spirit. This
leads to the ultimate conclusion that String of Beads references
the continuity of human physical and spiritual persistence Ð
that we are all derived from and are contributors to a singular
shimmering globule of genetic material, the ultimate vehicle for
the pursuit of spiritual apotheosis.
Strings of beads have persisted for centuries, in many cultures,
as a talisman of prayer and meditation. After long contemplation
on the work of Sol Kjøk, one might conclude that that which
is never seen, never scribed, is the most significant element of
all, the string running through the String of Beads.
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