Currin in The New Yorker

Yesterday, while on the subway and while having my roots done I read "Lifting the Veil: Old Masters, pronography, and the work of John Currin" in The New Yorker by Calvin Thomas.

I first saw a painting of his years and years ago at a Whitney biennial and was struck by the intensity of his images and kind of in awe of the old oil mainting great masters style. It was weird because there was something cartoonish and wrong about the figure.

After reading the profile I have a greater appreciation of his work -- what he is trying to do and why he succeeds so much. He talks about making things that are ugly and beautiful at the same time. He paints his figures with this exacting technique that makes the flesh and features so alive that there is a hyper-realism to them, and then he slightly distorts them, shifting the direction to the surreal.

I can't find a good quote from the piece right now, but what I enjoyed the most were the things that Currin said about art; I liked his mind a lot.