Featured Artist: I was interviewed for American progressive Jewish magazine Tikkun Daily in July 2011, USA. Great interview.
Tikkun Daily ( Tikkun Magazine's daily blog) interviewed me about my art and, as always with good interviews, made me think better about my painting and how (and why) I go about what I do. Please take the time to visit and read their high quality content which challenges the barriers we put up around the world. I realise how strange my artistic outlook sometimes appears and, for the saving grace of folk who can write brilliantly (such as Tikkun), my ideas might remain underneath layers of paint.
A Star is Born: Metaphorical Portraits of America (transcript)
by: laurabeckman on July 18th, 2011 |
Artist Carl Gopal’s interests are expansive, but he is by no means a dilettante. He is gifted with an ability to analyze current events in the context of the “big picture” without getting overwhelmed, weaving together schools of thought as diverse as popular culture and politics, spirituality and quantum physics. He is afraid that amid the exhilaration of rapid scientific advancement, we are losing the sense of humble awe at the universe that spurred our curiosity in the first place.
Gopal is also afraid that much of America has forgotten a dazzling Hollywood narrative that may have subconsciously shaped our approach to politics on the international stage. Ten thousand miles away, in Perth, Australia, Gopal is trying to remember this narrative for us, starting with a series of pieces layering acrylic paint, silkscreen, gold leaf, and collage entitled “The Assassination of Judy Garland: A Metaphorical Portrait of America.”
read more or the cross-post on AlterNet
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The main featured image is my painting And Starring Benjamin Netanyahu as Norman Maine (2010) which uses the actors’ fictional characters as metaphors for the relationships of statecraft (in this case a Hollywood power couple marriage in the 1950s). Symbols of America and Jewish faith narratives and angels appear and printed over Judy Garland’s character is an old internment document from Ellis Island where thousands of Japanese, German and Italian men, women and children were detained (imprisoned) for the duration of the war.
