Faces of Ecuador

‘Faces of Ecuador’ - Recent Paintings by Martin Kane

The paintings use symbols which are borrowed and adapted from everyday situations, the natural environment and from pre-existing cultural icons. The objects selected, for instance, a wrapped candy, a Western fishing rig and a Galapagan barracuda, are aligned with images from Ecuadorian culture like the barbasco plant (the Ecuadorian Huaorani tribe’s source of fish poison) in the painting ‘Fishing for the Huaorani’.


Fishing for the Huaorani Oil on Canvas 2008 175cm x 1oocm

The paintings are arranged as ‘faces’ or perhaps more correctly, as masks. They are formatted as two eyes above a mouth, two eyes only or as a one-eyed Cyclops with an eye above a nose and mouth. Intentionally, there is a primitivism intended in this organization.


Tiananmen Square Oil on Canvas 2008 160cm x 75cm

Images for the current exhibition were selected in three ways.

Firstly, objects were chosen that were already imbued with meaning by the society and culture from which they were borrowed. The cowry shell, for example, was noted by the Egyptians for the resemblance of the cleft underside to a half closed eye surrounded by serrated lashes. They wore the shell as a talisman, an evil eye as protection against an evil eye.

Midnight's Garden Oil on Canvas 2008 160cm x 75cm

In the second instance, the content was chosen as part of a vocabulary of personal ‘icons’ used in many of my past artworks. Examples of this are the ‘sweet’ (candy) and the ‘match’, where the noun gathers new meaning when punned as an adjective or verb. Upon this are layered further meanings according to the properties of the object. For example, a sweet tastes good, but rots our teeth (in past art works I have used the title ‘Poisonous Sweets’). A ‘match’ creates pairs, but is also an incendiary device, and a symbol of heat and potential harm.

Crimes of Passion Oil on Canvas 2008 160cm x 75cm

In the third instance the symbols were chosen because they fell into categories symbolically male and female. The tensions created between the objects are more metaphorical than actual and can also be read as addressing issues of duality, opposition, interaction and balance.

Love Knot Oil on Canvas 2008 175cm x 1oocm

If the juxtaposition of the objects sparks associations with loss of culture or disappearing ecological systems, so be it. Perhaps tongue-in-cheek Freudian notions are embraced, or a gentle challenge to regional militarism is offered. A further interpretation of the artworks could be as a form of anthropological parody, in that the work aims to highlight the tension of our self-perceptions as emotional, social and rational beings.

The images are painted in a descriptive manner. However, a variety of possible readings can hopefully move the viewer to note ambiguities which prompt interpretations ranging from the playful to the pointed and, occasionally, even the macabre.

Hannibal's Other Mask Oil on Canvas 2008 175cm x 1oocm

In Sight of Land Oil on Canvas 2008 175cm x 1oocm

The Birth Of Venus Oil on Canvas 2008 175cm x 1oocm

Spanish Dancer Oil on Canvas 2008 55cm x 100cm

Fisher's Knot Oil on Canvas 2008 55cm x 100cm

Incan Lily Oil on Canvas 2008 55cm x 100cm