Art Works > Selected Works. 2011-2012. Gerry Gleason.

Francis Bacon Tribute
Memory Game. 2010.
Dedicated to the memory of
Francis Bacon.
Gerry Gleason.
acrylic on canvas
190.5x177.8cm

Over the last few years I have been interested in Bacon's use of the space frame,
other practitioners of this formal spacial device would have been Giacometti in his sculpture
and Graham Sutherland in his paintings. Who was the first to use this device is debatable,
though I think Bacon took it further. I like the way that it isolates and contains the figure as if in
a glass box. I have at times used colour fields to contain and frame the figures, as I have for
a long time been an admirer of Barnett Newman's work. The biographer and Critic Michael Peppiatt perceptively deals with Bacon's very difficult relationship with his father. I have tried in this image to show the competitive relationship at times, between fathers and sons trying to score points. I feel games have been around for a long time, thus the simple paper darts on the monitor from my childhood. The game played is a long way from the physical reality of war its self.