Excerpt
The Persistence of Memory is an unforgettable dreamscape composition that plays with the timelessness of time and juxtaposes photo-like reality painting with what can only be imagined. Everywhere hardness is juxtaposed with softness and transformation abounds (fading deterioration of each element alone versus the enduring celebrity of the melting clocks as an iconic whole). The sur-reality of time passed in all its phases is explored within the framed time of a clock face. At the top of the painting is a sun-streak underlined blue sky that could be either the sunset or sunrise of 6 o'clock in three of the four solidified melting watches. Immediately, hope and despair are as one. At 2 o'clock is a rocky Catalonian protrusion (Dali) with a lone smooth pebble isolated in front (Gala, his muse and mistress). At 3 o'clock and extending centrally is a lived-in, well-moustached, long eye-lashed self-portrait, whereas at 7–11 o'clock are several natural and man-made structures with dulling reflective surfaces. The water-cool blue that is bathed in the sunlight (consciousness) contrasts with the earth-warm brown background that is featureless and variably shaded (unconsciousness). The latter surrounds the four pocket watches that form the central motif of this picture and which represent the different phases of time contextualised by Dali-nean imagination.
- ©ERS 2014
