'Strangled Planet' by Kristy Gordon - Visual Analysis

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Grenning Gallery Owner, Laura Grenning, and Manager, Megan Toy examine all of the components that are within Kristy Gordon's spectacular 2022 painting "Strangled Planet".

Excerpt from "Exigent Legends" press release:

Kristy Gordon’s (b. 1980 | British Colombia) work is inspired by her many visits to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, looking deeply at historic paintings from early Renaissance masters like Hieronymus Bosch and Jan Van Eyck, as well as beautifully decorated artifacts from the ancient Near East. Gordon gleans compositional cues from these historical treasures, and implants them into her contemporary narratives, which include present day people, paradigms, and pieties. Gordon has the technical ability to tackle these remarkable opuses, due to her many years of studying and training in classical painting techniques. She received her MFA at the New York Academy of Art, a BFA in Drawing and Painting from the Ontario College of Art and Design, and she spent time at the Academy of Realist Art in Toronto and the Andreeva Portrait Aceademy in Santa Fe. Perhaps most importantly, she has pursued private apprenticeships with the great contemporary painters; Yuqi Wang, Odd Nerdrum, Juan Martinez, and Jeremy Lipking.

“Strangled Planet” is the showstopper of this exhibition. Just under 5 feet tall and 8 feet wide, this super-scaled mural is a frenzied scope of the human experience across millennia. Gordon started this painting in 2018, after a heated presidential election in the USA, which solidified an inordinate divide between our civilians. The patriarchy in power, further subjugating the female – can be found symbolized by the men on “stage” towards the right. An angel with rainbow wings stands above them, yielding a gun. Other angels, and half-bird half-women figures fly through the sky above her – quietly oversee-ing all, nurturing humanity from a distant and great height. A large protest bustles through the right foreground – where figures desperately stand for what they believe to be right. “Love Not War” “Smash the Patriarchy” “Decolonize Now” “One Earth” and “Hurry!” are a few declarations written on signs. In the distance, we see figures among futuristic “Mad-Maxian” vehicles trudging through the terrain, perhaps even capturing angels in the sky. A single figure stands tall at the mountain’s peak, holding a flag, claiming his newfound discovery as his own – a nod towards colonization and the entitlement of man. One of the focal points of this turbulent mural, is the unicorn in battle. The unicorn is vulnerable, avoiding attacks from multiple angles, and out of fear, she attacks; piercing a wolf with her horn. The men behind her recall ancient soldiers, barefoot in flowing robes, clenching spears. Beautiful organisms decorate the foreground in an electric blue hue. The blue is so vibrant it almost makes these plants and flowers appear alien, or supernatural. Yet, Gordon is simply calling attention to the beauty that we have around us, Nature will constantly continue to grow, despite the vagaries of humankind. And finally, skeletons can be found along the edges of this story, appearing more active and playful than a corpse typically would– climbing trees, reaching for fruit, or swinging from ropes. Death is ever-present among us, and it’s not something we should shy away from.