TATLIN NEWS #44

в своих картинах он задается вопросами человека, стоящего на- половину в мире реальном и наполовину – в мире, в котором ему очень хочется оказаться. Но может быть, в этот мир нет физическо- го пути и в него может проникнуть только воображение кинга? Не- даром в его работах часто отсутствует перспектива, а значит, и до- рога в воображаемый художником метафизический ландшафт. | in his paintings he asks questions of a man half of whom is in the real world, while the other half is in the world where he wishes he could be. it can also be that there is no physical road leading to that world, and only King’s imagination can get there. in his works perspective is often absent as well as the road into the metaphysical landscape imagined by the artist.

King’s paintings are distinguished by an uncommon tech- nique he uses. This kind of paintings is referred to as encaus- tic painting. They are made with hot beeswax paints, which the artist has been using since he was a student. This method was known to ancient Egyptians, Romans and Christian icon paint- ers in Western Europe and Byzantine. The most widespread rec- ipe for was paints involves working with heated wax, pigment, resin and oil. All these ingredients are heated on a palette until melted and then mixed together. King applies wax paint layer by layer with brushes or pours them over the wooden basis of his paintings. Then he works over the surface or corrects it with the help of a heat lamp or scrubs set wax with a blade. Wax is a very deep and many-sided material. It can have only one lay- er or many layers, be transparent or opaque, depending on the pigments added to it. To my question if the artist considers his artworks to be beau- tiful, he replies that he definitely is striving for beauty, but this is not his main goal. King believes that the integrity of the idea makes the painting beautiful. Knowing about King’s profes- sional affection to coloured diamonds and his reputation of a pioneer in this area one cannot but wonder why there are no bright colours in the artist’s works. The answer is quite simple. King is a real artist. He does not project things that surround him in his daily life onto his artworks. Images he uses are com- pletely transformed in his imaginations, and bright colours are not a part of this transformation. He creates what he feels, and if images in subdued colours come from under his brush, then it is how he feels and sees them. So this is what his world is like and this is what it should be. Among the pictures exhibited in the artist’s studio my atten- tion was drawn to a large collage entitled «My rain». In its up- per right corner a map of Antwerp, an old Belgian port and the world centre of diamond processing and trade, drawn in pencil is placed under several layers of wax. To the left barely visible images emerge on the surface, coming up through frozen trans- parent wax. They are barely distinguishable. King did not plan for such intensity of wax (the result of such layering can often be unpredictable), and he got a lively impressionist vision re- mind of drops of rain on a window glass. They seem to be flow- ing down like tears right in front of our eyes. It is about to stop raining, the clouds will clear away, the sun will come out and a fairytale city will appear. But it keeps raining. Large drops of rain do not let us see anything, and there is only anticipa- tion and hope. In many years King’s paintings have numerously been exhib- ited in prestigious museums and galleries in the USA and Italy. The Brooklyn museum, the Library of Congress, and the galler- ies of Harvard and Yale bought his works to add to their collec- tions. When I met King, his solo exhibition opened in Atkinson Gallery in Santa Barbara, California. As the exhibition started, the artist hosted a lecture about his rare kind of art in a lo- cal university. Painting and graphic works of King presented at the exhibi- tion are milestones of his creative work. They have filled the beautiful gallery with a view to the ocean and the mountains. Excitedly King showed me a hand-made model of the gallery in Santa Barbara, where he had hanged scaled models of his own paintings! He was impatient to feel the atmosphere of the ex- hibition in the most precise way. Two lives of John King follow parallel roads. King daily deals with unrivalled beauty of the rarest diamonds that only the chosen have a chance to see. The artist tries to communicate his feelings of unique character and beauty through wax paint.

Desire and Compatibility, 2006

Живопись и графика Кинга, представлен- ные на выставке, – вехи творческого пути художника. Они заполнили интерьер краси- вой галереи с видом на горы и океан. Кинг с волнением продемонстрировал мне самоде- льный макет галереи в Санта-Барбаре, на ко- тором он в масштабе развесил уменьшенные копии своих картин! Ему не терпелось пред-

ставить наиболее точно – атмосферу выстав- ки. Две жизни Джона Кинга идут параллель- ными дорогами. Ежедневно Кинг сталкива- ется с неповторимой красотой редчайших бриллиантов, которые удается увидеть лишь избранным. Свои ощущения уникальности и красоты художник стремится передать воско- выми красками.

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