Bogos Kalemkiar Commentary

The Drawers - Bogos Kalemkiar Commentary written by Julie Oakes

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An Exotic Erotic Christmas, Dec 9 - Jan 11, 2007

Bogos' bodies are bombastic. They bump with fleshy brashness, seemingly bursting the picture plane and invading the private space of the viewer as if their proximity sense was slightly too permissive. Big hipped women, taken from the viewpoint of a masculine gaze, seem to miss the fact that they are the focal point. Languorous and sensuous in the soft pastel sketches, they are the permissive invitations to enjoy the sensations of the flesh for the body embodies the erotic impulses and flesh signifies sensuality and there is nothing quite as enticing as a nude. The sexuality of painting from the figure cannot be disguised or averted even when the context is mythological, classical or exotic. Bare naked ladies, whether in an art book, magazine, strip show or museum, invoke the response of exposure.

The work shifts into another dimension in the more formal drawings where a religious text is quoted. Wrestling with the mysteries of creation and sexuality, Kalemkiar harkens back to a time of passion plays where a mixture of pagan and Christian references excite and taint the religious iconography while lending a formality to the shamanistic. Bringing to mind traditional settings with the heavy lines of stained glass windows in ecclesiastical spaces, the rude insertion of hermaphroditic genitals gives the origin of the species a new take.

There is also the insinuation of magic, spells that the body remembers from the dawn of civilization that have been reborn again and again into the gene structure, each time reignited by sex. The frontal presentation of the figures in these drawings could be the beginning of a set of cards where the players are linked to royal lines, serpents intertwine with humans and the Tarot is born from the affairs of supernatural agencies. Beyond the range of ordinary knowledge, the occult influences have crept into a contemporary artist's oeuvre and Bogos Kalemkiar possessed - has used his adept hand to further the subliminal messages.