Puberty, Alcoholism and Suburbia; Eric Fischl’s Depictions of American Life
My favourite artworks & my thoughts.
Eric Fischl captures the “disturbing undercurrent of American suburban life” depicting inquisitive realities of his own childhood and themes including alcoholism, sexuality, grief, neglect and the general feeling of malaise. Fischl’s work intrigues me the most due to its reflectivity to my own perception of memory. The stylistic way in which he paints resembles dream-like memory; comparable to how I envision my own childhood from memory.
His works often include bare bodies in relation to familiar interiors and exteriors, more specifically his paintings through the mid 70’s- late 80’s has become my main focus. Works made within this period projected his career and reputation in the art scene, gaining recognition for his conscious figurations- he’s to be considered the most influential figurative painter from the late 20th to the early 21st century. Works I’ve collected in interest remain central to this period in his career and subject matter.
Time For Bed, 1980 illustrates a distorted nightime scene of a family. The mother and father sloppily stand almost drunken- seen as a spilled wine glass falls over the fathers shoulder via mother. Their assumed children stand in the background in their sleepwear. A sense of grief radiates from thier son as his head bows in an awkward-shameful manner. This reminds me of what Macrospia looks like, also known as the Alice in Wonderland syndrome where primarily children experience visual altered perception, making inanimate objects larger or smaller than they actually are.
A Funeral 1980 depicts a rather depressing scene from what I can assume to be Fischl’s mother’s funeral. The painting feels as if the spectator themselves stands within the foreground, fully immersed in the scene. Eric (left forward) stares into the viewer as his family disposes of his mother’s ashes; the look on his face is incredibly telling, the single tear and slightly agape. The perspective feels out-of-body and leads me to assume Fischl painted this work from memory, encapsulating the feeling of great loss and applying it to canvas. This work alone stands out from the rest of his early exteriors for its pure achromatic scale, differing from his common use of rich pigments.