Cut Hand, Hurt Eye
Artist:
James Surls
(American, born 1943)
Date: 1981
Medium: Monotype
Dimensions:
79 × 43 in. (200.7 × 109.2 cm)
Credit Line: Gift of Bill and Sue Sue Bounds in honor of Tom Spicer
Object number: 2017.23.3
Label Text
A fantastical figure amid a field of knives is rendered here in vibrant red and white with primordial vitality. As the title and imagery suggest, James Surls is often engaged in dualities—including that between the natural and the man-made, the real and the imagined, or creation and destruction. Inspired by his early years living in the Piney Woods of East Texas, Surls is best known for his wood sculptures carved from felled trees that incorporate symbolic or mythical imagery using anthropomorphic and organic forms. In a related manner, the woodblock printmaking technique, for which the image is carved into the surface of a wooden block as a relief, was used to make this print. The white lines are the deeply carved contours that the red ink did not reach.
(Lana Meador, 2018)
(Lana Meador, 2018)
Not on view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
