Menu
The New Contemporary Art Magazine

Nir Hod Paints Scornful Children

Israeli artist Nir Hod once told Interview Magazine, his greatest discovery was that "it's not easy getting older." In his painting series "Genius," Hod pulls at the tension between childhood and adulthood and breaks open a space in between innocence and inurement. His images are of young children smoking cigarettes and looking at the viewer with expressions of disdain, arrogance and suspicion. Though there is certainly an element of dark humor in dressing rosy-cheeked toddlers in rich fabrics and endowing them with sweeping hair, the paintings are disquieting for their ability to reflect one's now-corrupted inner child back unto him.

Israeli artist Nir Hod once told Interview Magazine, his greatest discovery was that “it’s not easy getting older.” In his painting series “Genius,” Hod pulls at the tension between childhood and adulthood and breaks open a space in between innocence and inurement. His images are of young children smoking cigarettes and looking at the viewer with expressions of disdain, arrogance and suspicion. Though there is certainly an element of dark humor in dressing rosy-cheeked toddlers in rich fabrics and endowing them with sweeping hair, the paintings are disquieting for their ability to reflect one’s now-corrupted inner child back unto him.

The paintings hang together, creating a school of contemptuous children. However, their individual conceit produces a profound feeling of loneliness, of superiority and alienation. One cannot gaze at these paintings for long. The expressions of the children pain the viewer and undoubtedly isolate them from their other hanging peers.

Meta
Share
Facebook
Reddit
Pinterest
Email
Related Articles
For the past few decades, New York City-based painter Lisa Yuskavage has challenged norms in figurative art and blended progressive concepts with acknowledgement to the history of the form.
Ryan Hewett’s experimental formations of the human figure, shaped with knives, brushes and paint rollers, return in a new show at the Unit London this month. Among the fresh works offered in “New Paintings” is the massive “Memories,” measuring more than 11 feet by 6 feet. The work took more than a year for the South African painter to finish. Hewett was last on our site here.
The intricate abstract works of Miertje Skidmore internalize and transform the environmental extremes of the Australian landscape. Her paintings suggest the otherworldly- each abstraction could be a birds-eye-view of a multicolored planet. Her palette makes use of mineral and elemental colors that wouldn’t be out of place in some of the most rare enclaves of nature.
In Adele Bessy’s crowded paintings, figures and faces are used as building blocks. Her work, in both its frantic quality and control, has been compared to the likes of Bosch and Arcimboldo. The artist is based in Achères, Ile-De-France, France.

Subscribe to the Hi-Fructose Mailing List