Wild Kingdom. Oil on panel, 7.25″x10″, 2009, Leonard Koscianski.
This is a small painting, in oils on wood panel. It is Postmodern in style. It combines styles in an eclectic blend to create a contemporary art piece. Romantic Art ala George Stubbs is combined with Surrealism and American Primitive art. The white, dreamlike canine (is it a wolf or a dog?) is rendered in precise detail. But the details are not those of a “realistic” image. The canine is painted from the imagination. It is not based on any real world model. The background houses are severely simplified ala Italian surrealist, Giorgio de Chirico. The viny branches are symbolic as well. The colors are used to heighten the expressive character of the subject. The red gums of the dog are exaggerated, over simplified. Most of the other colors are exaggerations and/or oversimplifications. This is a dream world, a nightmarish world, of a dystopian suburbia.