Thank you for this very interesting story. My academic field for many decades has been art history and art criticism, in fact I graduated on this latter subject, although in the last 10 years I have chosen to devote myself only to fiction writing. As an art critic I have written many articles, art catalogues, held academic courses and have organized and launched several exhibition. So, when I started to see Daddy's paintings, I was very curious to know more about them and to analyze them. I must say I haven't found anything online in terms of exhibitions, catalogues, critical reviews, auction sales, quotation and the like, at least for what I was able to see. So I suppose he was an amateur painter, not a professional, who probably just enjoyed painting after he retired.
Yet, as she seems to value these works so much, I wonder why she didn't organize an exhibition or even a catalogue; it could be because there aren't many works, apart from the ones she treasures in her shittoo? I must also add that she has no taste whatsoever in hanging them. She seems to hang them all in the worst places, as they are surrounded by milions of colours and patterns from her "decoration".
Anyway, isn't it funny that, whilst she talks about these paintings as if they were some masterpieces, in the neglected and plain website where they are reproduced, they are just stuck there, with no title, no date, no description of sorts, no possibility of enlarging them etc. Just thrown there. Total lack of interest. Yet, being such a devoted daughter, and with all the money she and the old hag have between them, why not do something for her father's "art" other than hang it around? It looks to me that neither of them give a damn about it. SJ, who doesn't understand anything about art, just uses the "Daddy-was-a-great-artist" attitude in order to associate herself with the art and the artists' world.
Apart from that, I tried to see what I could say about them, if I were to see these paintings in some gallery. From a technical point of view they are very simple and basic. It seems they were all painted with acrylic colours, which is generally a much easier techinque than oil painting if used by an amateur. Not of course if they are used by a Master. Oil painting allows the artist to layer, to blend, to give more depth, to research more in terms of athmosphere, feelings, impressions etc. Acrylics, if you don't have a deep knowledge of the medium and of their manyfold possibilities, are more flat, especially when used by someone who is not too much into techniques.
In fact, if you notice, all these paintings are very elementary in their composition, the colours are flat, sharply separated, no blending, no shades or hues, the lines very simple, the composition quite elementary. There is only one exception, and that is the very crammed procession of medieval dames and knights he copied from some medieval illuminated manuscripts or perhaps tapestries.
But then, what makes painting art is not just the technique, but the emotion, the feeling, the athmosphere the artist evoques.
Can you see here any feelings, any emotion? No. Everything is quite cold, chilly, flat, lifeless. Just some flat figurines or images on a flat background, which communicate nothing. Apart from some ambiguity which emerges from some of the faces. Also there is a search for originality that has not succeeded.
They are not terrible, mind you. DJ could have been a good poster illustrator for advertising, as the colours are bright, eyecatching, simple but then there is nothing behind it.
I have also read here that some of you think his images have some pornographic quality. I wouldn't say so. I think that this impression is given by the fact that some of his images are sexually characterized - sometimes in a bizarre way - but then everything is so cold, flat and detached that whatever reference loses its deeper meaning. I think that impression can be generated by the ambigous looks some of the figures have in their eyes.
What I gather from all this is - and I want to stress that this is ONLY MY OPINION based on what I can see - that DJ was not a person of passion or strong feelings. He seems to me a detached, very rational man but quite ambitious. Art (well, in this case amateur art) can say a lot about its maker.
There is much more I could say, but then it'll be too long and boring, so I stop here.
I'd like to know what you think of this analysis and if you think it could apply to what we think of SJ's relationship with her Daddy.
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