Philip Perkins - The edge of Yesterday

Surrealist aesthetics emerged around the 1920s and encompassed all fields of artistic research. Specifically, in the visual arts, Surrealism sought to explore the human subconscious and translate it into artwork through a mechanical writing process based on dream analysis. Consequently, Surrealist artworks propose the representation of a dreamlike dimension, completely dissociated from reality. However, this representation often relies on a hyperrealistic formal rendering, paradoxically accentuating the illusory and ambiguous nature of the surreal. The Surrealism developed by Philip Perkins, however, seems to take a different direction. His works are based on automatic writing and the definition of worlds and figures from another dimension, but everything is rendered in a geometric form influenced by Cubist decomposition.

Philip Perkins's compositions are always highly complex, and one can certainly call them Surrealist given the artist's unrestrained approach to constructing his world. However, Perkins's aesthetic is distinguished by the highly rational character of his dreamlike world. This rationality is fueled by the presence of various geometric elements, inserted, moreover, into a mechanically constructed space, indebted to Cubist decompositional analysis. The arrangement of all the elements reflects this remarkable geometric spirit, which, combined with the implausibility of the subjects, produces an even more alienating effect. Formally, too, there is a strong inclination toward geometry, resulting in a tendency toward three-dimensional space, with strong shading designed to give greater plasticity to the structures. In terms of color, Philip Perkins stands out for his bold polychromes of bright hues, always seeking an overall balance within the work.

Philip Perkins was an American artist born in Waverly in 1907 and died in Nashville in 1970. From his small town in western Tennessee, Philip Perkins became a widely recognized abstract painter. He is best known for his geometric, Cubist-influenced work of the 1940s. During the 1950s, his work was more influenced by Abstract Expressionism, with more spontaneous brushstrokes and less distinct forms. It was in the 1950s that he also began a series of religious works in a semi-abstract style. By the late 1960s, his paintings were leaning more toward Art Informel.

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