75he did not allow the imagery the freedom found
with the slabs of pigment applied wet-on-wet in his
latest works. Back then, the paint still described the
features; it was still restricted to the drawn shapes,
and a likeness. Now that has been greatly reduced.
He has moved further away from representation to a
more abstract idiom, in which the paint itself evokes
the mood of a person. The full weight of the works
literally depends on paint and how it is applied. There
the works succeed or fail.
Trolove has stressed his commitment to the
materiality of paint as an antidote to the digital screen
imagery of modern communication devices by which
much art is transmitted and received. He wants his
works, like performance, to interact in real space
and time where their physical presence engages the
senses without being mediated or diluted by digital
processes. It is really a cry to commit to painting, to
acknowledge its uniqueness and relevance at a time
when it seems to be under siege.
In placing such emphasis on paint itself, Trolove
does not stand alone. Tracing origins for his approach
one could evoke none other than Rembrandt in
his late self-portraits where the thick paint and its
application takes on a physicality and emotive power
that contribute to the intense inner depths of those
works in which exterior trappings lose importance.
Much more recently the paintings of Francis Bacon
and Frank Auerbach come to mind. Auerbach in
particular embeds his figures and portraits in a dense
mass of pigment that has the materiality of Trolove
without his intense colour. Viewed historically Trolove
connects with a direction in painting which he has
built on and evolved to suit his own purposes. The
materiality of his thick paint paradoxically points to
the spirituality of his subjects. Its physical presence
intensifies our experience of the moods, feelings and
desires of Trolove’s characters. He touches on those
emotional and sensory states that we experience in
moments of intimacy with others.
Metamorphosis is central to our experience of the
paintings. Nothing remains fixed or finite. As we
walk around and backwards and forwards, the faces
emerge and disappear into the surfaces of paint.
How we read the colour changes, too, from being, for
example, part of a nose or a lip to being purely a patch
of red in a formal composition of an abstract nature.
Sometimes, as in Even Afterwards, a largish area of blue
enhances the mood of introspection when we find the
closed eyelids drawn over it. Much if not all of this
dimension is lost in reproduction where the image
is fixed in one position. A video would record the
viewing experience more accurately.
Trolove’s titles are almost interactive in that they
lend themselves to various interpretations. For
example, The Thick Skin of a Pronoun goes with the
most explicit image of a gender ambiguous person
and seems to point to the issue of gender identity and
responses to it. In this instance, the open mouth and
contorted features, as if in a scream, convey feelings
of pain and anguish. Trolove explains that this work
is about social violence, exploring how language can
be a protective skin around our bodies and hearts. It
considers what happens ‘under the skin’ when this
protection is removed and the person’s gender is
intentionally discounted.
The paintings address issues of concern in
modern society where acceptance of difference is
often denied and tragic outcomes such as suicide or
discrimination are all too common. Tenderise proves
to be, on reflection, a show of considerable depth and
relevance. In it Trolove has evolved as a painter of
substance as well as a virtuoso manipulator of paint.(opposite) JACK TROLOVE The Thick Skin of a Pronoun 2019
Oil on canvas, 1200 x 1400 mm.
(Photograph: Alex Efimoff)
(right) JACK TROLOVE Even Afterwards 2019
Oil on canvas, 1200 x 1400 mm.
(Private collection. Photograph: Alex Efimoff)
(below) JACK TROLOVE Intercession—detail 2019
Oil on canvas, 500 x 600 mm.
(Photograph: Marlaina Key)