PORTRAITS OF A MODERN MYTHOLOGY

1.  By the 1970s, Muhammad Ali’s fights had become global events. The first of the three with Joe Frazier was a defining moment in the political and cultural history of the United States. It was both a landmark New York event and a worldwide cultural phenomenon, attracting a live audience of 400 million people.

It is remembered as The Fight Of The Century. 

As a history painter, Van Armstrong saw in this Fight the mythology of Achilles and Hector reborn in modern times - the stakes raised sky high by the knowledge that television would bring the drama to hundreds of millions of people.

Nemesis is a homage to this Fight, in the form of an artwork comprising 15 paintings, each 8 feet tall and up to 16 feet wide. It’s absolutely huge!

2.  As one might expect of a sophisticated painter with deep roots in the Old Masters, Nemesis is no simplistic depiction of fisticuffs, the kind of thing a sports artist might do.

To quote Joyce Carol Oates freely, Nemesis is a celebration of life in the flesh, where man in extremis performs an atavistic rite for the solace of the watching millions.

Nemesis recasts The Fight Of The Century as an existential drama, a treatise on the human body in motion and under duress, which concentrates the weight of a great fight into 15 giant images of startling intensity.

The likeness of the two protagonists, distorted by pain and exhaustion, is portrayed with consummate skill, in non literal fashion of course as is customary with Van Armstrong.

3.  Art historically, Nemesis expands on Francis Bacon’s earlier experiments with boxing imagery.

Whereas Bacon’s attempt to marry the ethos of European Expressionism to boxing was inconclusive, Van Armstrong absolutely nails it, managing to portray the inner life of a great fight with power, refinement and pathos.

Again this is no relentless, one dimensional celebration of physical brutality. The paintings pulsate with life and color. In some the mood is lyrical, almost dreamlike.

The paint handling ranges from turbocharged physicality to extreme softness of touch. Sfumato is much in evidence. If you want to see what sfumato looks like in a modern painting take a close look at Nemesis 2, below.