Samuel Bak

Nailings [Septet 4/7]

2021
Oil on canvas
20 × 16 inches(50 ¹⁄₂ × 40 ¹⁄₂ cm)
Signed lower center: BAK
This painting is one of seven which can be placed contiguously in a row to complete a single uninterrupted montage. Each panel contains a duet of human figures in various states of destruction presented compositionally as wood, stone, painted image, and flesh. Using a monumental sized nail, one figure, often shown wearing a partisan cap, is murderously impaling the other figure, who mostly wears a coat, tie, and fedora hat as he tries to escape with raised stigmatized hands. The large nails are weapons, the smaller nails cause damage but are of no benefit for repair.

In “Nailings D”, the figures are reduced to faces and a few appendages. The painting is composed of multiple fragments of everything creating a powerful abstract assemblage. Behind the larger partial face is a hatted image looking backwards at the attacker. Does he know him? Were they fellow citizens once? An oversized “X” shows us the lead man’s fate.

There is hammer head associated with each of the facial figures. The white stone replica above the victim’s head has erosions which might signify part of a tree trunk and branch. Perhaps this hammer was helpful in creating the life which has been extinguished. The smaller metallic bluish head contains the face of the perpetrator as he symbolically drives the nail of destruction.

“Getting nailed” as depicted in this and the associated paintings is murder by something more commonly viewed as reparative. What are other historical instances where apparent benefit, expected support, anticipated repair lead to disastrous consequences? How often is the individual who harms you a person you thought was a friend?

Dr. Carl M. Herbert (Guest Writer)
BAK a Day, December 19, 2023

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So many faces of those who were nailed by others.
In a world that has been totally fractured by mankind’s inhumanity to man, Bak takes up the structure of the Cubists as his vision of fragmentation.

Faces, nails, "X" as a symbol of death, trees and branches even an artist's unpainted canvas.
All gathered to remember and now to reflect the destruction.
Whether Europe in the great wars or Ukraine, all we can do is watch the devastation and to what end?

The tragedy of war is upon us and may be built into the human condition.

Bernard H. Pucker, BAK a Day, March 14, 2022.
Themes: Tool, Figure

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Samuel Bak

Nailings [Septet 4/7]

Literature