intaglio fibreglass resin, lacquer and gold leaf

Artwork date: 1970
Signature details: signed and dated 1970/5
Literature: Berman, E. and Nel, K. (2010). Alexis Preller: Africa, the Sun and Shadows. Johannesburg: Shelf, illustrated on p.285

(1)

91 x 106 cm

Everard Read Gallery, Johannesburg.

Notes:

Floating in a Mediterranean sky blue, a huge solitary head both fills the format and imposes itself on the viewer’s consciousness. The presence is archaic in its allusions to the great pharaonic heads at Abu Simbel with their shapely, pointed beards, sensuous lips, and almond-shaped eyes: the quintessential image of the God-King. Also, the almond-shaped eye and the ritual scarification on the cheekbone links directly to Yoruba sculptures from Nigeria. Preller knew and owned examples of such Yoruba work.Preller’s Angel King is unambiguously a symbol of light: the warm radiance of the burnished gold leaf counterpoints the lapis blue detailing reminiscent of the great death mask of Tutankhamun. This ancient quality notwithstanding, the work is curiously timeless in a future-oriented way.Massive and emblematic, this disembodied – somehow metaphysical – presence glances at the viewer from the corner of its eye, taking note, as it seems to glide by.This work is executed in Preller’s innovative intaglio method: the image appears at a distance to be in high relief but is in fact produced as a negative, a concave form, cast in fibreglass resin. The cast is then meticulously painted to create the illusion of a convex rendering of the form. In the finished work, the eye is constantly challenged by an ambivalent reading of surface and image, making the work even more enigmatic and ungraspable.The 1969 Lidchi Gallery exhibition at which Preller first showed his intaglio works marks a return to early experimentation with painting into plaster moulds, the pre-cursor to the intaglio technique. Richard Cutler’s photograph of an early exhibition of September 1948, at Preller’s studio, Ygdrasil, shows a small head with remarkably similar characteristics to the much later Gold Angel (Arêté) (Africa, the sun and shadows, p 120).As so often with Preller, a number of related versions exist. This work, Gold Angel (Arêté) of 1970 (Africa, the sun and shadows, p 285) and Angel King (1975) are direct fibreglass casts from a single clay original. Gold Angel (Arêté) thus forms part of the genesis of Preller’s interpretation and re-interpretations of this particular theme and image-prototype. In retrospect, the idiosyncratic nature of his technique reflects Preller’s lifelong interest in space and light, form and colour. And the beauty of these works reflects a singularity of vision that embraces the significance and visual languages across time and cultures.

Karel Nel

Sources:

Berman, E. 2010. Alexis Preller: Africa, the Sun and Shadows. Johannesburg: Pan McMillan/Shelf.