Samuel Bak’s "Recomposed", a 2018 oil painting notable for its bright color palette, features a still life composition that is presented to viewers through a cropped lens. The piece, featuring a number of fractured elements that nearly bewilder the eye with their vivid hues and overlapping arrangements, consequently takes a beat to visually adjust to and comprehend.
As a technique in painting, cropping has, historically speaking, been used by artists to place emphasis on specific aspects or items within a scene and to engage viewers by proposing contemplation over the implications of the alteration of the image’s boundaries. Cropping is most often an aesthetic decision that brings to the painting both a sense of mystery as well as the strong suggestion from the artist to focus on what they have chosen not to crop or omit from the image. Additionally, this artistic choice generates the suggestion of a larger scene just out of reach of the viewer’s line of vision, which, in turn, invites them to imagine what may exist beyond the painting’s harsh boundaries.
Admiring "Recomposed", it is clear that Bak has cropped the image with the intention of demanding that his audience bear witness to and take note of its central element, the teapot. Although broken, marred, and perhaps even the victim of a gunshot wound, Bak’s teapot stands tall and takes center stage, defying all odds. Shifting left to right in color from a pastel blue to a more delicate peach, the vessel stands with a substitute spout that has been attached to the teapot’s remains in the name of its reconstruction. Although it may seem fruitless to do so, an individual has taken the time, energy, and resources to attempt to return this teapot to its former glory as an intact and whole object, an act that implies its importance. The title, "Recomposed" also points to the concept of the restoration of the self, which is a favorite theme of Bak’s that recurs frequently in his work.
A clever approach to promoting visual engagement among his audience, Bak forces his audience to interact with his composition, whether it be by experiencing the consequential sensation of such forced nearness or by visualizing the continuation of the presented scene and elements that have fallen victim to his crop.
Lucy McGing (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, August 19, 2023
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