BAM - Fine Art Photo Graphic

One of 30 images from a major solo exhibition titled “roMANse” at Adonis Art Gallery, London, UK, August 2004.

“roMANse evokes the air of a dreamy rose garden, offering a dazzling sight and filled with heady perfumes. To paraphrase a religious maxim ‘ as the rose blossoms under the sun, so to the nude shall blossom under the eyes of its beholder’. The roMANse series is overwhelming, offering a new level of experiencing the male nude, whilst evading a straightforward reading. Through his masterful technique, raw material becomes aestheticised. McTavish invests the male nude with a dreamy veil that awakens beholders to a new dimension: one that is metaphysical, as beyond corporeal reality. McTavish suggests that there is more than just fleshiness and physicality to the male body. Beyond their materiality, all the prints in the series are individual icons that initiate beholders to the spiritual side of “’Man”. Each icon is a proposal to live in imitation of the rose: that our life may endlessly expand as the petals of the rose.”

© 2004 Megakles Rogakos, (Critic & Curator of Art), Curator of roMANse

Location: Victoria, Canada & Regent’s Park Rose Gardens, London, UK

Photographer: Brent McTavish