Is the figure dragging the boulder in a childlike wooden wagon across an uneasy terrain? There is the illuminated cross on the ground: it is a crossroads to nowhere…
Above the cross an "X" is somehow suspended. This "X" is Bak’s symbol for death. Life is x'ed out. This "X" is constructed out of the single segment of a tree of life, or death. It has a single sprouting branch. Desolation with a spark of life and hope.
There is this floating Crossing that directs us to the sobering reality of death.
Bernard H. Pucker, BAK a Day, October 13, 2023
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X marks the spot and this one is hard to ignore. These sawed and broken wooden pieces, tied together and suspended from each other, create the X on the top half of the picture plane. Just underneath, a figure carrying a heavy load comes to another X: a crossroads, an injunction, a choice.
Bak uses the X as a way to mark something out, say it is no longer, it is dead. But the X made of wood is not only sturdy and heavy, it is also floating right in front of the viewer. Bak chooses to place this object at the very front of the picture plane stopping and confronting the viewer right away. This creates an incredible range of depth which reaches out to the mountains, miles off in the distance.
Is this space real or a memory of a place we have known? Is it where we have come from and what we miss? A memory of leaving? A choice we had to make?
As a painter, I like to get close to Bak's work. I marvel in the details. The way Bak applies layers of thin and thick paint creates so much depth and realism. His interpretation of grasses and land, layers of marks, help take the viewers' eyes around the painting by using pattern and movement. He works with the viewer to help them discover things, like the X in the road, by using a rope to point directly down to it. Bak's words and message are in the details of every painting and every mark he makes.
How can we make sure that the past is not forgotten and the future builds on the lessons we have learned?
We cannot go back.
Many Americans recently "celebrated" Thanksgiving with family and friends. Struggling with the "holiday" myself, I meditated on these words from Jasmine Wahi (Curator, Educator, and Activist), "We need to recalibrate and re-revise our understandings of history. Of violence. Of complacency and complicity. We need to use these new histories to shape new futures. Equitable futures. Empowered futures. Black, Brown, Indigenous, Asian, Mixed, Latino/a/x and on futures."
Beth Plakidas (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, November 26, 2022
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Or the double cross. Often using the "X" as the symbol of death or x-ing out.
The massive cross in the sky is paralleled by the cross on the ground as the single figure draws his burden across the arid landscape.
In the distance, a vague trio stand. Too far away to be witnesses.
There is a sense of the enormity of the space and almost calm.
Strange if not eerie.
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