SIDE BY SIDE–LOST LIVES: PAINTINGS BY ED FRAGA
An image of serenity anchors the center of Key Cistern Dream #1 (1993): an unclothed man floats on an air mattress in a limpid, cerulean blue pool; a lush tropical landscape can be seen in the background. Whether asleep or just daydreaming, the solitary man looks completely relaxed.
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But this pleasant image is only a tiny part of a larger, more somber whole. Most of Key Cistern Dream #1 is given over to an aerial view of a bed covered with wrinkled blue-black sheets and a pillow on which two red roses lie. A beveled chartreuse cross frames the central idyllic scene, glowing like neon against the dark sheets and accentuating the sharp contrast between the painting’s zones of light and darkness, joy and sorrow, life and death. The bed sheets are painted in a hyperrealistic manner (I overheard a visitor exclaim in surprise when he discovered they weren’t real), while the dreamy landscape receives a broader, less painstaking treatment, giving it the look of a remembered moment.
The Flight of Icarus (1993), the largest work in the show, also gives a familiar myth unexpected treatment. In its left-hand panel an expressionless, life-size Icarus, wearing blue-and-violet-striped tights, stands poised between long red curtains at the foot of a golden staircase, the unlikely wings behind his shoulders looking like wood planks rather than feathers. In the right-hand panel, against a cheerful background of blue sky and white clouds, a bouquet of roses, irises, and lilies tumbles out of a circular opening in a crumpled length of yellow cloth. At first glance this diptych seems almost humorous: Icarus looks, if not unwilling, then at least not particularly anxious to begin his flight, and the strange combination of formulaic, cottony clouds and closely observed upside-down flowers is both awkward and exceptionally beautiful.
