Chicago downtown alley single streetlight at dusk in purple yellow acrylic charcoal Batman Gotham

by Mendyz

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Price

$11,200

Dimensions

30.000 x 36.000 x 1.000 inches

Title

Chicago downtown alley single streetlight at dusk in purple yellow acrylic charcoal Batman Gotham

Artist

Mendyz

Medium

Painting - Acrylic On Canvas

Description

The painting of a simple urban architectural Chicago downtown alley is rich in compositional and symbolic elements. It's not just a single streetlight at dusk in purple yellow. But one of the acrylic artistic expressions of charcoal hiding the idea of Batman in Gotham. It's not easy to spot, but the artist gave enough clues. Take the streetlight in the centre: it's not just one of those cheap orange-red electric light sources you find in almost every urban downtown alley. This is a more artistic design. The artist painted a black light source. And what's a black light? It's an ultra violet light which is used for a particular medical process, usually to show up bruises or other signs of internal bleeding in x-ray pictures. Black light also refers to a technique for detecting counterfeit bills in the same way; the bills have a tendency to fluoresce black when placed under the black light. The use of a black light is therefore apt symbolism for a crimefighter with a shadowy background.
The building on the right side looks like a Gothic church or temple from a film noir melodrama. A little bit of this can be seen in the title and theme of The Maltese Falcon, though this movie wasn't set in Chicago. The building on the left has been done up into an Art Deco skyscraper with its windows in a checkered pattern, reminiscent of a chessboard. One can read the checkered window designs as the initials B.T. and G.A.D. This suggests the names of characters in a crime story—or possibly even the names of the criminals. The checkered windows are also an artistic reference to the chess board theme of the Art Deco building. But this motif seems rather obscurely chosen in view of the checkered window design being more commonly found in Gothic churches and temples. The fact that these buildings seem to be leaning out from their foundations is a clue as well. The fact that they don't touch each other is suggestive as well; a subtle allusion to a character's double life.
In the foreground is the typical graffiti on concrete pavement: words scratched in a blocky manner like a comic book artist drawing in a crude style. There's a suggestion here of the Batman costume being torn away by some villain. The fact that the Batman symbol doesn't seem to have any obvious meaning in the scene seems to indicate the presence of Batman only by inference.
And then there's the alley itself, whose darkness is indicated by the lack of streetlight. It has a certain foreboding quality in that it's too dark to see what's going on ahead but not so dark that one would fear being struck by a stray bullet if someone fired a gun. Yet the absence of streetlights implies a general lawlessness which is probably responsible for the existence of crime. If there was an urban downtown alley where streetlights were always turned on, it might not have the same feel about it.
The painting is in oils, and the artist has given some careful thought to the composition of his subject matter. There are a number of things to note here. There is an overall balance between light and shadow, with the shadows on the right being darker than those on the left. It seems that the building on the left is in shadow, as though the light is coming from the other side. But since the building is symmetrical and balanced, we can assume that this isn't an error of the artist. There's a subtle hint that the shadows may be on a balcony. A closer examination makes this clearer, but I won't show any of my photos because it might help the reader too much. This implies a possible antagonistic rage between the two characters of Batman and his Villains. Chicago is the best backdrop for Batman. Clean, fresh, and fun. A wonderful painting helping to enrich the lively city in the Midwest.

Uploaded

July 17th, 2022

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