Remember the old moralistic story, about how King Midas wished that everything he touched would turn to gold?  And then it happened?  These paintings go a long way to showing us what King Midas’ world must have looked like. 

            The series is titled “Placcato Oro” which in Italian means covered in gold.  These paintings are, without doubt, gold in every possible dimension.  When asked about how he came to paint these canvases, Win says, “If you are familiar with my work you know that my paintings have incorporated paintings of frames for many years now.  The frame is part of the painting.  At first I did this because someone framed a painting I’d done with the most awful, dominating, ugly frame imaginable and the painting wasn’t my painting any more.  I have been studying frames for over twenty years.  Sometimes I’ll go to a museum just to look at the frames.  So often they are gold, more gold and golder still.  Often the frame overwhelms the painting, even on venerable old masters, and sometimes I find it impossible to even see the painting because the frame is so wide and ornate. With the first painting I did in this series, I wanted to experiment and see what happened when the gold took over literally. These paintings are the result.”

"Zibeon is an award-winning painter who has several bodies of work, two of which are featuredin the show at Van Brunt Gallery this month. His Placcato Oro paintings portray the world as it might have been seen by King Midas; everything is covered in gold. Small gems, these works explore Zibeon’s overriding concern with illusion and reality. He clearly can paint whatever he wishes and he chooses to subvert the illusions he can so easily create with a second or third level of eyefooling imagery.

In one painting, a Japanese mask hangs from a nail hammered into the frame of a placid seascape,the mask, the nail, the seascape and even the frame, all deftly painted mirages. Even the title has a double meaning: Goldmind. And indeed this is an opportunity for the thoughtful viewer to mine several layers of meaning, not the least of which is a meditation on what is truly valuable in life."
FROM THE PUTNAM COUNTY NEWS & RECORDER 12/5/07

Placcato Oro | Anti-Landscapes | Still Lifes  |  Watery Windows  |  Weapons  |  Masks
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