Valentine Cascarino
A new exhibition by artist Keith Dietrich called Bodies, Traces, Identities has meanings so intricate it’s enough to send viewers into a frenzy of deep thought.
Consisting of 150 unframed watercolour fragments, the almost satirical works depict various body parts (some of them quite frightening) that seem to raise a sea of questions about the nature of body piercing.
Dietrich’s exploration of the human body has been motivated largely by the desire to ruffle the feathers of a predominantly Western-based philosophy of the human body that includes a canon of beauty that is racially based with a strong male gender bias.
Although the works appear satirical, Dietrich is reluctant to call the exhibition a satire. “I’m not interested in satire,” he says, “but I love playing with humour. I’m portraying the co-existence between beauty and pain. The paintings are contemplative and I consider them as mantras.”
His brilliant use of watercolour is particularly significant, given his ongoing interest in the relationship between reality and illusion, fragility and permanence. To him racial and gender classifications are illusionary.
“If I’d used another medium of painting the paint could have made the images a reality when touched. But with watercolour, the images cannot be felt by a mere touch,” he says.
His interest in the relationship between craft and technology is navigated in the meticulously hand-rendered watercoloured fragments. But as usual he maintains he’s not a watercolourist.
So what is Dietrich? One wonders whether he even considers himself an artist. Like a gambler, he keeps his cards close to his chest. And so it is difficult to tell which is a joker. However, when they are laid on the table they almost send one flying through the window – the viewer is like a victim of Lennox Lewis’s fist.