A day’s outing to the rather desolate but revealing shores of Surrealism.
A father in his flat cap and Sunday best gazes pensively seaward but what does he see?
In his ironic Surrealist manner the artist deftly pulls the rug from beneath reality and an uncomfortable truth is exposed to the perspicacious eye.
The vast seascape is usually a repository for feelings about the elemental and the eternal but here is exposed as a contrivance – a thin plaster and lath crust cunningly propped up on mysterious stanchions.
It is tempting to play ‘spot-the-influence’ and one can detect hints of Surrealist masters like Salvador Dali and Rene Magritte in the glassy, meticulously-blended surfaces and eerie shadows but AS Craig’s vision is a strong and original one. The artist draws on his own working class roots to populate his painting with protagonists that would not look out of place in an RS Lowry work. This adds an everyday authenticity to the essential fantasy.
Threat and anxiety permeate this painting. What else is artifice? What other delusions hide the truth from us? A nuclear family is imperiled by more immediate concerns. An ambivalent figure approaches – a helpful stranger or a predator? The mother takes no chances and sends her daughter to safety.
The painting has a marvellous design. The picture is split by the urgent, dark diagonal shadow which is connected to another satisfying patterns of darks, the family, the lovers and the promontories. The artist’s style is fundamentally quiet, calm and unshowy. But AS Craig’s style is always subservient to his unsettling message.
Artist: AS Craig
Dimensions: 63 x 48 cm
Medium: Oil on canvas
Year: 1975
Analysis: Mark Robinson, artist based in Penarth
AS Craig 