jay alders – ‘ right past the light ‘
‘ Right past the light ‘
Mr Jay Alders does not muck around with surfers’ feet. In this work he has stuck a very bony number smack in the middle of the canvas, very bony and extremely well planted. He also does a very detailed water surface. Mr Alders paints as if he is familiar with meditation – This is a meditative work of an instant where everything in reality is speed noise and force.
The picture is also a caricature – The position of the surfer is impossible, the board is too smooth, the wake to gentle, the wave face too slick, the lip too heavy and there is no commotion – and like good caricatures it works in all the ways he has planned because all the realities are there.
Front foot centred, back foot on the rail, layback supported by leading arm, trailing arm in balance and the subject’s head is upright. There is also a satifying leanness in the surfer’s physique and a satisfactory shade of neutral colour in his shorts – No buff, no logos.
The bleed of colour through the work shows that Mr Alders in no stranger to the science of colour (chromatics) – particularly in his treatment of the sun – here as he has painted it as the source of all the light in the work despite being almost obscured by the lip.
Mr Alders has also denied the surfer a face and this is another good thing given that there is no shortage of images of their ugly mugs these days. We are speaking of male surfers in this instant, Ms Gilmore is on my wall, cutting back.
Mr Alder’s work is readily available here – the fact that he toured Brasil in 2007 with Donavon Frankenreiter, Matt Costa and G Love will not be held against him.
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