Michael Tole

The Aesthetic Martyr

2019

Michael Tole says of his work… This painting reimagines the moment when Cleopatra contemplates suicide after her battlefield loss to Octavian. In this revisionist history, Cleopatra thinks better of suicide, and at the last minute redirects her servants to pass the basket of fruit with the asp on to the triumphant Octavian who sweeps in with his entourage. In this scene, Octavian reaches for an apple, triggering the asp to strike. This, like most of my recent work, reimagines historical, mythological, and literary motifs to destabilize the inherent power structures within those narratives. The style adopted is Rococo, which coincided with the rise of Colonialism. The style therefore relates to the historical narrative of this piece which shows the conquest and colonization of a colonial ruler. In my current work, The Revisionist Histories, I am writing letters to art history, literature, and mythology in an attempt to reflect the social changes that have reshaped our society over the past century.  As part of this agenda, I explore the evolution of gender norms, power dynamics, and representation within Western visual culture and what this implies for the negotiation between pleasure, justice, and our culturally specific discourse on beauty.    The seed for The Revisionist Histories was sewn when I caught a glimpse of my preteen daughters watching music videos on their iPad as I chopped veggies for dinner.  Out of the corner of my eye I caught glimpses of music videos featuring Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Ariana Grande, Katy Perry, and Doja Cat gyrating across the tiny screen.  A better parent might have snatched the iPad away, but I was overcome with hallucinatory visions of this pop diva...

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