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 a boxing match, the kind of thing a sports artist might do.

Instead, The Fight Of The Century is recast 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.  Nemesis expands on Francis Bacon’s experiments with boxing imagery, from the 1960s.

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.

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.

Nemesis pushes post modern ideas on figurative painting to new extremes, while depicting subject matter that everyone can understand. It shows what can be achieved when a sophisticated aesthetic treats a universal theme.

With roots in centuries of artistic precedent, we recognize Nemesis for what it is - the latest chapter in the long history of Art’s attempts to find beauty and meaning in human combat.

Fiona Starr, M.A. Leeds University

April 2024