Anatomy of the painting "Black Rationality"

The painting “Black rationality” stems from Lucian Strindberg Boyle's fascination by 17th century Flemish painting technique of depicting skin and Juhani Pallasmaa’s seminal book “The eyes of the skin” where Pallasmaa talks about the  notion of membrane in art and architecture and the sight as the dominant sense of our era. Not just the skin, but also canvas is a membrane that contains, safeguards, is layered, reveals someone's identity, could be punctured or penetrated.

Photography and found images play a crucial role in Lucian Strindberg Boyle’s practice. By using photographs and re-adapting them in different media he questions role of images in the age of visual reproducibility.

1.  Lucian Strindberg Boyle divides canvas, building up layers in a similar way to how architectural plans are drawn. Distinct layers of textures are constructed on top of each other, while the painting remains a flat surface.

2. One can recognise use of sections of skin structure (from anatomical reference books), with numbers still present, that have been silk-screen printed onto the canvas. The similarities between anatomical section and an architectural section are relevant to how we see and translate the world around us into visual images.

3. The 90 degree rotation of a painted eye could be seen as a tongue-in-cheek reference to Juhani Pallasmaa’s book “The eyes of the skin”, which was the motive force in starting to create this particular painting.

4. Strindberg Boyle has included an image of his own brain scan, making this semi-abstract painting (or at least a part of it) into a portrait. This gesture makes one question what does constitute  a portrait in a traditional sense.