The Vamp
Artist
George Chacona
MediumOil and dry pgment on etched marble
Dimensions46 1/2 x 29 in. (118.1 x 73.7 cm)
ClassificationsPainting
Credit LineSeattle Public Utilities 1% for Art Portable Works Collection
Appropriating an image from “The Scarlet Letter” with Lillian Gish, Chacona resurrects and recharges them by using wit, juxtaposition and by burning them onto durable materials. His work attempts to balance two apparently conflicting attitudes towards objects and actions in time. The first is that everything is fleeting -- love and hate, good and evil, pleasure and pain, life and death -- and that above everything, all is vanity. The second attitude, the one that prevails, is that as ephemeral as these may be, memory and morality are important and worthy of our best, if frail efforts at preserving them.
George Chacona