Description of the work of Carl Karni-Bain

Bai has made the concept of The Mask his chosen vehicle for exploring the boundaries of abstraction and representational form over a recent series of paintings. By reminding us of our earliest obsession with recognizing and reading faces, he asks: What is it that you want to see in this picture? But instead of eyes and mouths defining and signaling the emotional content, Bai's haunted masquerade characters express deeper truths by underscoring what is hidden or missing. This recognition game takes surprising turns as a harsh landscape suddenly becomes an ancient aboriginal visage and a glittering carnival mask becomes an abstract mosaic of precious stones and twisting metallic arabesques. Although his lonely figures lack exterior warmth, their classical, Christian and neo-pagan forms retain and communicate a powerful sense of mystery and dignity.

The immediately identifiable style of rough, expressionist lines and heavily worked surfaces belie the subtle organization of Bai's bold canvases. Primitively fashioned shapes intentionally evoke raw movement but are found delicately quilted into intricate arrangements. African and European sensibilities collide and are playfully subverted into purely aesthetic realms that find universal questions about how we respond to beauty and suffering. Bai often works his canvases up to the point at which they appear to be chiseled or carved into the surface, rather than painted with acrylic. Often they give the impression of having aged over centuries with exposure to the elements. Every inch of the frame has been carefully textured but the images exist on a flat, airless space where background and foreground are insignificant, and only the seething motion of line and color define what is seen.


David Gresalfi 6-6-02