Kenneth Probst – Everything Is Gonna Be Alright

Kenneth Probst – Everything Is Gonna Be Alright

$2,500.00

2020

Acrylic paint on canvas

60 x 48 inches

1 in stock

Description

This painting is autobiographical.  It’s a reflection of my life this past year, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Elements include:

The bizarre juxtaposition of a UFO abducting survivors of the Titanic, much like COVID coming (almost) from another world, and disrupting

what was already an in extremus political and economic situation. Similarly, the beautiful flowers on the right (I have four gardens) morph into

cells of coronavirus, the largest being an image of President Bozo, whose clownish incompetence has only deepened the crisis. Tucked into the flowers on the right, a white bunny screws a Black bunny

as a symbolic tribute to systemic racism. A key element in the lower left is a woman in shadow, or eclipse, sitting on a couch. She is my wife, Elizabeth, who was taken by breast cancer this 

past September (2019).  She wears a jumper suit, and hat, that she wore the night that I proposed to her in Saint Martin, 35 years ago.

The black iron grillwork at the top is a tribute to Matisse, my art god. He used the device in several early innovative paintings. And, the spade near the bottom is a reference to Richard Diebenkorn, another of my art heros.

Finally, what are the odds of a total solar eclipse at sunset?  I have no idea,

but it’s a great visual metaphor for the Year 2020.

Hey, everything is gonna’ be alright.