In this latest instalment of his “Discovery of Pink” series, Robert Farmer takes us out of the funhouse and into a more recognizably natural, yet still mythical, world. Most of the characters are familiar ones, including the creepy cats, the giant babies and, of course, the mischievous bunnies, though you can tell they have all evolved quite a bit since their inception in the feral mind of their creator. New to the series is a marked reference to travel, which has sparked a dazzling new array of adventures for the original cast.
The scenery has metamorphosed in these paintings thanks to Farmer’s technique du jour. It developed as a result of his latest discovery, this time of found paper (no pun intended), which he adheres to masonite boards glued onto canvas-less stretchers. He completes his preparation of the ground by painting a non-uniform wash of burnt umber over the entire surface. Darker in some areas, lighter in others, the wash makes the reproduced images look faded and aged, and makes for a satisfying contrast to the artist’s candy-coloured painted figures. As a result of his recent experience painting on copper, for which he could not execute traditional preparatory drawings, Farmer learned how to eliminate an unnecessary step from his process by sketching in paint directly on the surface of the glazed panels.
In this new foray into mixed media, Farmer started out working on pages torn from old hardcover storybooks to set the stage for his surreal imaginings. He moved on from there to discarded maps, which he continues to exploit more for their aesthetic qualities than any specific geographical references. Reproductions of old master paintings have since joined the roster, along with the Laura Ashley wallpaper, whose peculiar decorative qualities are capturing his imagination at the moment. Despite the new backdrops, Robert Farmer World remains the eerie, fantastical and disturbing dreamscape it has always been. And the hallmark pink continues to pervade the landscape with ever-greater vigour. For the past two years or so, Farmer has allowed himself to be carried away on a wave of free association with this girlie hue, riffing on everything from toys to sugary treats to bunny rabbits as he goes. He seems to delight in turning our expectations of these icons on their head, and warping our mental links with pink in as many ways as he can dream up.
Yet his manoeuvring should not be mistaken for manipulative intent, for Farmer claims to be as much a passenger on this meandering ride as we are, led by the mysterious forces of his unconscious. As the prolific painter has noted himself, his work “begs for psychoanalysis.” One senses that painting is Farmer’s own personal form of therapy, and we are the Jungian psychotherapists absorbing his unloaded dreams. For Farmer, symbolism belongs in the eye of the beholder: the viewer’s reading of his work is paramount. It is as though he sends his paintings off into the world like one of his pirate ships, as though his part is done, but the life of the painting has only just begun. Like the tree that falls in the forest: does a Robert Farmer painting exist when no one is looking?
Both the palette and the mood have lightened significantly here, though Farmer’s hauntingly headless creatures still abound. The characters’ play feels less sadistic, more innocent than in earlier works. Nightmarish details have been softened and the dreamscape seems to be a slightly safer place to roam. There is also a greater accent on play, and the giant babies have taken on a central role. All the monstrous conceits of the early pink works have been siphoned into these pie and cookie monsters who tower over the teeming bunnies, their mouths gaping holes of ravenous, insatiable desire and tyrant-like glee. Farmer finds himself mortified by the wild, caveman-like behaviour of children, particularly when hyped-up on sweets; he is mystified by their moodiness and lack of morals or ethics, their inability to reason, and he translates these impressions into visions of reckless giants, crazed by a primal hunger.
It is the bunnies, however, that have emerged as the stars of this group. Much simplified from their original appearance at the beginning of the series, they have evolved into a trademark image: little, portly, androgynous pink bodies covered by formless, pink-and-blue-striped coats trimmed in white fur. Collectively they form a sort of Robert Farmer alphabet of gesticulating characters, a quirky personal shorthand that has started showing up in each new painting. Their faces are expressionless, represented as they are by two sole dots for eyes, and so the bunnies curtly signify emotions through their gestures and postures alone. They were introduced to the series early on, emerging from the pink room in the house of Farmer’s mind, and from the beginning, they have acted as innocent and playful foils to the more sinister elements in the paintings. As the mood and palette have lightened, so too have the bunnies become ubiquitous.
It is in the bunnies too that you will find the most direct manifestations of the artist’s personal outlook. The sometimes-naughty creatures who romp and frolic through worn-looking Dutch Baroque landscapes and fairy-tale realms act out Farmer’s nostalgia for a bygone era. Though he was not even born then, he would return to the golden era of pre-1950s North America if he could. He venerates the quality of the building materials from that time, for example, which he became familiar with when he used abandoned edifices as the exclusive subject of an earlier series of paintings. He is wistful for a time before television, which has fattened us and dulled our social skills. And he rejects the suburban childhood he spent imprisoned in vinyl siding and carpet, living mainly on processed and frozen foods; the same banal milieu since epitomized by films like FUBAR and Gummo.
This is where the dark side comes from, against which the bunnies rail, this sadness and disgust over our mass-produced, packaged and disconnected post-modern world. Yet the introduction of ever more bunnies seems like a hopeful sign. The tension between dream and nightmare, between light and dark has reached an exquisite balance, and each side is somehow more vivid because of it. The fairy tale has softened, which has made the inhuman inhabitants of Robert Farmer’s world all the more deliciously eerie.
Michelle Tarnopolsky
April 2007
