Artist: Stephen Hansen
Title: The Lovers (Magritte)
Medium: Acrylic/Paper Mache'
Dimensions: 20.25"h x 26.75"w
"The Lovers (Magritte)" depicts a surreal scene where a painter on scaffolding dressed in a patterned white dress splattered with colorful paint, is finishing a painting attributed to Magritte. The Lovers depicts two large, draped figures with their heads bowed and faces obscured by the drapes. The figures are painted in shades of blue and gray against a blue sky, and they stand out markedly from a dark red wall to the right and a cream-colored structure with a Corinthian column fragment to the left. The sculpted painter, blindfolded in a similar cloth akin to the painting, holds the paintbrush and adds an intriguing dimension to the scene, blending reality with the painted world he is completing. The physical scaffolding along with the wires suspending it, intersects the boundary between the art and the viewer's space, creating an illusion that the artwork extends into our world.