Paul Sontag (1987-2012) Cravingbird I 2010 oil on canvas, this very picture made me stop at the exhibition of Estonian artists in the New Tretyakov Gallery.
In the dark depths of the picture there is a similarity of grids like a cage, a girl is on the foreground surrounded by people in white bird masks. Their expressions are predatory, gloating, and do not bode well, they bind the unfortunate creature.
She seems to have resigned herself with her situation, sadly looks at the sky, if she is to wait for help, then only from there.
The more depressing the plot and the characters are repulsive, the more beautiful the face of a fragile girl. And you keep looking as a spellbound.
Thoughts about the imperfection of the world, about cunning, the death of innocent and beautiful people arise in the head and add up to different stories.
The artist himself spoke about his work, “… I believe that our own malevolence is something we have to accept, as we do our intrinsic fallibility and inadequacy. That is the only way we can ever enable our better sides to develop and to act. A lot of my work is based on personal experience and human condition.”
Paul Sontag, an Estonian artist, worked his last years and lived in London. The life of an infinitely talented artist ended too soon. He was 26 years old. This is precisely that injustice, when a person left, and there remained incompleteness, confusion and insane pity about the uniqueness of the segment of the path called “life”.
