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Station V: Condemned
Old Holland oil on Belgian linen
122 x 183 (H x W) 48x72
© Miriam Cabello 2011
The painting “Condemned”
depicts a weight scale with important national and international
historical dates that aligns the White Australia Policy with international
conflicts on segregation, oppression and injustice. The viewer will
recognize the significance of our political and social history from a
global perspective. The assistant that weighs in the boxer, simultaneously
removing his robe and sliding the weights, cleverly draws the viewer to
the scale. (The weight rests on: 1963 the year Martin Luther King, Jr.
delivers his “I have a dream” speech and President John F. Kennedy is
assassinated). His actions quote those of the Roman guard in Caravaggio’s
Ecce Homo who disrobes Jesus after the mocking. The boxer stands defiantly
staring back, with bruised bloodshot eyes, this time quoting Rubens’ Ecce
Homo. He is not the usual bowed head and hands crossed demurely in front
of him.
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