Etienne Chambaud Untamed, 2023
Tempera and gold leaf on wood panel
50,1 x 39,6 x 6,2 cm
Untamed is a series based on found and modified religious icons. The characteristic gilding of the background of the icons has been extended to cover the entire scene only sparing the bodies of the animals in it. Freed from the narrative of religious scenes into which they were painted, the horses, donkeys, oxen and sheep seem to float in an otherworldly space. The reins, saddles, bits and all other visible signs of human domestication have been gilded. Often left as the only not-gilded areas of the paintings, the animals' heads, legs and other body parts are isolated from the narrative context, freed—Untamed, as their title suggests—but also split apart and eerily untethered not just from their surroundings but from the rest of their bodies.