Sam Dargan

"The Celestial Abduction of Henri de Rochefort at the Behest of the Third Republic, 20th March 1874"  Oil on canvas  130x110cm  2012

"The Sea Won't Save You, Vidkun Quisling (Wrong Place, Wrong Time #2)"  oil on canvas  50x30cm  2012

 

"Christ’s Entry Into Paris, 18th March 1871: A Diversionary Tactic"  Oil on Canvas  2011-12

"Rue Charles Peguy, Road to Mulhouse: 18th October 1977"  Oil on Canvas   130x150cm  2012

"Cold War Bolt Hole (at Home with Dean Read)"  oil on canvas  30x24cm  2011

from "A Bad Year for People"  2007

Sam Dargan is another "successful" artist but new to me and so I'm posting his work here, because.. well damn it... I like it. I have to admit that looking back over his earlier work I was slightly put off by the overwhelming  jaded cynicism of it all. That's not really on display here and you'll have to do the googling for yourself to see what I mean. But there are remnants of it in his long obtuse historical referential titles. Those too put me off at first but actually they're rather fascinating, once you dig into them a little bit. For example "Rue Charles Peguy, Road to Mulhouse: 18th October 1977" is a reference to the assassination of Hanns-Martin Schleyer, a former SS officer by the Red Army Faction, aka the Baader-Meinhof gang. His body was left in the trunk of a car by the side of the titular road. That strip of pavement in the foreground becomes so much more significant. But the images themselves are only loosely tied to the narrative titles. The actual images have their own historical reference points, most especially the romantic landscapes of artists like Caspar David Friedrich (it seems that lately I'm finding a lot of artists harking back to the great Friedrich, whom I recall my art history teacher poo-pooing a bit as mere sentimentalism significant only in its historical context. I love how that stuff turns around).

Here's a link to a better review than mine from the Guardian. And here's a couple links where you can look through some more of the artist's work:
art.sy/artist/sam-dargan
www.rokebygallery.com/artists/sam-dargan