Irving Kriesberg’s painting Ascension (1997) is included in the exhibition Weird & Eerie: Selections of Extraordinary Character at the Daum Museum of Contemporary Art in Sedalia, Missouri. The exhibition opened on September 7 and is on view until December 1, 2019.
Ascension is part of a recurring motif of works that Kriesberg called Dogfields. These paintings depict large swaths of migratory stylized figures, treading uphill and off the edge of the canvas plane. Kriesberg described these paintings, which he first embarked on in 1988 as “fields of creatures climbing the hell of this world.”
In many instances, a larger figure such as the devil or white owl (both common Kriesberg characters) loom above smaller masses of animal-like beings. In this painting, the devil hovers over the fleeting creatures either as a guardian or a persecutor.
See this painting up close in Weird & Eerie: Selections of Extraordinary Character, which is on view through December 1, 2019.
Installation view of Weird & Eerie: Selections of Extraordinary Character. Courtesy of Daum Museum of Contemporary Art