"Images with Multiple Meanings"

Cat and Mouse, oil painting on canvas

Cat and Mouse (detail of cat/bouquet)

In preparation for my November trip to Morocco, I have been reading about Muslim culture and I was struck by their commonly held belief, even today, that households are inhabited by an invisible fraternity of spirits called Jinns. They are mentioned in the Qur'an and can be a force for good or evil, but are almost always causing mischief.

Perhaps this is the reason I felt the urge to animate the objects in this still life painting that has become an interaction of the personalities between the cat/bouquet and the mouse/lamp.

Since I am committed to this approach, I have been working to reinforce these "hidden" images in a subtle way so that they merely flicker and lend an element of instability and energy to the composition. I have added eyes, ears, a nose and the hint of a mouth to the bouquet but kept the cat/table shadow against the wall a little off kilter so that the illusion is dependent on viewer participation.

Cat and Mouse (detail of mouse/lamp)

The same is true of the mouse/lamp. I pushed the similarity I originally saw between the fanciful shape of the art nouveau lamp and Mickey Mouse. The lamp base took on a shape more suggestive of Mickey's Buster Brown shoes and I added a faint reflection of his trademark ears in the mirror. But I stopped short of cartooning the image, leaving the viewer to discover these touches on his own.

Now I guess I should decide if I will give away the "game" with the title. Maybe I can come up with something less obvious. Any suggestions?

Working in this genre I stand on the shoulders of the past masters who excelled in painting enigmas, ambiguities and double images. Among those artists Giuseppe Arcimboldo, M.C. Escher, and Dali come readily to mind.

Allegory of Summer, Giuseppe Arcimboldo, 1573

In this painting a portrait of a man is made entirely from the produce of summer. These various fruits, vegetables and cereals constitute an image that symbolizes the intensity of man's connection to the fruits of the earth.

L'Image Desparait, Dali, 1938

In this painting, Dali first presents us with the image of a woman reading a letter and then, with a shift of focus, we see the profile of a man with a moustache and beard. Here, as in most of his work, "Dali's images stand still and yet they have something cinematic about them. . . they do not themselves change, but the viewer is forced to transform them."

--The Endless Enigma: Dali and the Magician of Multiple Meaning, written and published by Hatje Cantz.

Drawing Hands, M.C. Escher, 1948

Perhaps the twentieth century master of visual metamorphosis is M.C. Escher who has the ability to transform shapes seemingly in front of our eyes. "To the extent that one image dawns, the other sinks into the fog." --Ibid

"A right hand is busy sketching a shirt cuff upon a piece of paper. At this point its work is incomplete, but a little further to the right it has already drawn a left hand emerging from a

sleeve in such detail that this hand has come right up out of the flat surface as though it were a living member, and it is sketching the cuff from which the right hand is emerging."

--M.C. Escher: The Graphic Work, introduced and explained by the artist, Taschen Publishers

The Bird of Self Knowledge, Anonymous, 18th Century

"It is impossible to paint just one thing. For when I try to paint it, I always get the thing plus that which it is not. The first is impossible; the second is everything."

--Dali