1990: Samuel Bak's 'Stone Moon,' reviewed by Iliana Vega
Bak’s representation of people was almost always in the form of pears, and I felt like that was especially important in this piece. This pear (or person), for one reason or another, is hardened inside; like the rock fragments floating around, they’re completely solid, despite their outside skin looking the same as before.
To me, it was a depiction of a traumatized person in an unforgiving world, to the point where that person has been nurtured to be the same way - even if that part of them was “hidden” by their skin.
There’s a lot of vulnerability in this piece, as well, with that same skin coming off in strips and floating away, making us privy to what was on the inside. The color of the skin is a deep, lighter blue, making it stand out more harshly against the softer blue in the backgrounds - and it’s a point to mention that Bak’s blues are used to communicate hopefulness.
The subject might have been forced to become hard inside, but despite that, it’s still a “stone moon”, which means it’s still floating despite the imagined weight it might have carried.
I interpreted this piece as having to endure difficult, life-changing circumstances, and never being able to go back to who you were before; still, there’s hope to live on and rise above that. The peeling of the skin could be seen as a bad thing, but I took it as a kind of honesty; it’s revealing what’s inside, and what the pear can do regardless of everything.
This is my own personal interpretation, with respect to Bak’s past and the things he went through, all of which changed him in an unexplainable way that even he had to learn to rise above. That idea of pushing through irrevocable, even adverse changes, is something I and so many others can see ourselves in.
I don’t think I can ever be the same person I used to be because of the things I’ve been through, and I hope to work through that; in a lot of ways, Bak’s piece is a meaningful promise that I can find a way.
