Einstein & The Jealous Monk (II)
'Einstein & The Jealous Monk (II)'
Category: Paintings
Artist: Chris Gollon
Subject: Larger Works
Year of Work: 2004
Media: mixed media on canvas
Size: 40" x 30"
Private collection. This mysterious work is the second version of 'Einstein & The Jealous Monk', the first having been purchased by a major museum collection. (See Public Collections page for details). In this work Gollon painted both protagonists as masks which are also alive. They are also nailed to a signpost saying 'One Hour Ago'. It is a sort of a party painting, and without physical gravity, since the burst balloons still float in space. Shoals of arrows swim in the universal dark behind, perhaps hinting at black matter.
Perhaps the idea suggested is if one was going to a masked ball or party, which of the two masks would one choose, bearing in mind one would become that person, since the mask is alive. Einstein was famously dyslexic, hence the crossed out equation, or is it perhaps the Jealous Monk's attempt at an equation of Relativity? Perhaps deflecting attention from his dyslexia, or out of humility, when Einstein was once asked why he did not write his ideas down, he replied that he'd only had two, and he could remember those.
