Art Exhibit Critique - the Crucifixion of Gomez

Patrick Nealon

Mrs. Jennifer M. Lubinski

Art History 112

10 April 2017

Art Exhibit Critique

        The art gallery that I attended was the AFA Gallery in Downtown Scranton. It was located on Lackawanna Avenue on the 500 block of the city. Upon walking up to the building, I noticed that the exhibit was rather small, and once I entered the building I realized that the building the exhibit was in was also very narrow. There were pieces of art hanging on each wall with stands for sculptures running down the room. The exhibit was set up in a way that pulled the visitor in and made them walk through the entire exhibit seeing each individual piece of art. After going throughout the exhibit I chose the piece The Crucifixion of Gomez because it was one of the few pieces that really stuck out to me.

        The Crucifixion of Gomez was created by a woman named Mikayla Lewis. It is a rather large piece of art and is roughly two and half feet by three feet, and the medium that she used for this piece was charcoal on canvas.  This piece has a lot going on with a lot of different people throughout it. The piece has a total of nine men in it, one of those men being Gomez and the other eight being the men that are lifting him and the cross. Out of the eight men that are lifting the cross six of them are younger stronger men, while the other two look old in their appearance with white, bushy beards. However, despite their ages all of the men in the piece, including Gomez, all have very strong bodies with very detailed muscles. Along with these men is a small dog in the bottom left corner of the piece. Surrounding the group of men and Gomez is an overhanging cliff with a little bit foliage hanging over it and some rocks near the edge that almost seem like they can topple of the cliff at any moment. Along with the foliage near the cliff edge is a tree further in the background that has its roots precariously hanging off the edge of the cliff. Complimenting the lacking foliage is a dark and dreary sky with no visual sun in the distance. Another thing to note is how smooth the underside of the cliff appears, which is in direct contrast with the very rough and rocky edge and top of the cliff. These are the some of the more notable features that are present within this piece of art by Mikayla Lewis.

        Throughout this piece there are a lot of visual elements that she uses. The first visual element that she used is line. She uses a multitude of different lines throughout this piece such as sharp, curved, thick, heavy, straight lines. She also uses some diagonal lines in this piece such as the body of Gomez going from the top left corner to the bottom right corner of the painting. The next element that she uses is shape. She mostly uses curvilinear shapes and soft shapes such as the bodies of the men and dog or the curvy roots hanging over the edge of the cliff. Next element that she utilizes is textures. She uses this by making the body of the men appear smooth and soft, while making the edge of the cliff rough and hard with rocks and roots. Because this piece is done in charcoal there she does not make use of colors, but she does use different values to create different lighting affects making some parts darker, like the cliff, and other shinier, like Gomez’s body. She makes use of the element of light by highlighting the body of Gomez and the cross. Some of the dark areas that are in the piece is the cliff behind the men and the ground beneath them. this helps in highlighting Gomez and the cross. The lighting helps in identifying the focal point, Gomez’s body, because the areas surrounding him are much darker than his body. She also makes use of the element of balance by making it asymmetrical by having a majority of the men on the left side of the work. Finally she uses the element of space in this work by giving the viewer a shallower space to look at because the cliff behind the men seems to be enclosing on them and keeping them contained. The elements that she used in this work help to create motion throughout the piece by showing the men pulling and pushing Gomez and the cross up. She also uses subordination in this piece by really focusing on the element of light and creating her focal point of Gomez.