.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Penitent Crossing is an outstanding visual testimonial to Ronald Ventura's skill at painting the human form: not only the artist's technical perfection in rendering physiology, but also his genius in portraying the emotional tension within the human condition.
Between the years of 2004 2007, Ventura's works had not yet begun to fully display the characteristic pop elements with which he is now strongly associated. By contrast, his works were realist in technique, but the underlying subject matter was framed within a meta-universe set slightly apart from everyday reality. Each work also carried a certain sense of the artist's inner self; his musings on personal frailty and latent aspirations.
Within Penitent Crossing, the figure is a highly recognizable one for any viewer familiar with the religious culture of the Philippines. The man is a penitent on Good Friday: a procession of anonymous men who undertake a ritual of contrition and mortification of the flesh. Some penitents perform self-flagellation, whipping their backs ceaselessly with a cat-o'-nine tails until blood runs down their bodies. Others carry a massive cross, re-enacting Christ's passage to the fields of Golgotha. The more extreme will undertake the full act of crucifixion, with metal nails hammered through their hands and feet, and being raised on to the cross under a scorching sun. Although this act is carried out in public often in the early morning towards mid-afternoon, the precise hours that Christ carried his cross through the Via Dolorosa, or Path of Grief - the experience is intended to be deeply personal and solitary. Like the figure in Ventura's painting, all the penitents wear a scarf tied over their face; less to maintain anonymity than as a gesture of humility and to feel the vulnerability of the blinkered. This often emotionally traumatic process is fully portrayed by Ventura, his superb photorealist skill giving real physical depth to the painting, from the muscles and sinews of the man's body down to the texture of his skin.
However this is not a strictly realist portrait. The color palette of clashing yellow and black shades imitates a '?Pedestrian Crossing' sign. Ventura intends to satirize the spectacle of the blinkered penitents slowly passing through public streets, halting traffic and generally causing mass congestion. The combination of these different elements reflects why Ventura is acknowledged as a true contemporary master: the humor and profundity of the visual pun, an emotional revelation about the power of faith and self-ablution, and finally augmented by his exceptional painterly technique within a single masterpiece.
Between the years of 2004 2007, Ventura's works had not yet begun to fully display the characteristic pop elements with which he is now strongly associated. By contrast, his works were realist in technique, but the underlying subject matter was framed within a meta-universe set slightly apart from everyday reality. Each work also carried a certain sense of the artist's inner self; his musings on personal frailty and latent aspirations.
Within Penitent Crossing, the figure is a highly recognizable one for any viewer familiar with the religious culture of the Philippines. The man is a penitent on Good Friday: a procession of anonymous men who undertake a ritual of contrition and mortification of the flesh. Some penitents perform self-flagellation, whipping their backs ceaselessly with a cat-o'-nine tails until blood runs down their bodies. Others carry a massive cross, re-enacting Christ's passage to the fields of Golgotha. The more extreme will undertake the full act of crucifixion, with metal nails hammered through their hands and feet, and being raised on to the cross under a scorching sun. Although this act is carried out in public often in the early morning towards mid-afternoon, the precise hours that Christ carried his cross through the Via Dolorosa, or Path of Grief - the experience is intended to be deeply personal and solitary. Like the figure in Ventura's painting, all the penitents wear a scarf tied over their face; less to maintain anonymity than as a gesture of humility and to feel the vulnerability of the blinkered. This often emotionally traumatic process is fully portrayed by Ventura, his superb photorealist skill giving real physical depth to the painting, from the muscles and sinews of the man's body down to the texture of his skin.
However this is not a strictly realist portrait. The color palette of clashing yellow and black shades imitates a '?Pedestrian Crossing' sign. Ventura intends to satirize the spectacle of the blinkered penitents slowly passing through public streets, halting traffic and generally causing mass congestion. The combination of these different elements reflects why Ventura is acknowledged as a true contemporary master: the humor and profundity of the visual pun, an emotional revelation about the power of faith and self-ablution, and finally augmented by his exceptional painterly technique within a single masterpiece.