Sold for: $25,000

PROVENANCE
A Gift from the Artist to Sancta Maria House, Toronto

Perhaps inspired by the altarpieces he would have seen while in Europe, Christ and Woman is a modern devotional, and an incredible example of Kurelek’s capacity to straddle art with religious instruction. A crucified Christ hovers over a harshly-slanted landscape populated by cross-bearing figures, while a stormy sky is illuminated by holy light. Extending the trompe-l'oeil effect that Kurelek readily employs in his frames, here the whole painted board has been made in the shape of the cross. The Christ figure is laid across this, pierced directly onto the paint field, miraculously eliding together landscape, cross, body and material together into one space. Further emphasizing this, the sacred heart, which seems to float in front of or emerge from his chest, on closer inspection is stitched to the side of his body and laced through the building in the background by thin spears.

The weeping figure at the bottom of the work was originally painted as a self-portrait by Kurelek before later being changed to woman. While Kurelek often included self-inserts in his more moralistic works, here the subjective experience of the modern everywoman is evoked as the figure of the Madonna - a fine example of Kurelek’s skill in grounding even his most fantastic and didactic works in a sense of lived experience.

The consignor proceeds of this sale will go to Sancta Maria House, a charity committed to supporting at-risk young women in Toronto. For more information, please visit Sancta Maria House’s website here.

All prices are in Canadian Dollars

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