| In Lucky, Lucky, Lucky, as in many of his paintings, Alexis Kersey combined dichotomous symbols gleaned from Indian and Western culture. The painting’s composition recalls a Christian altarpiece of the Virgin with the young Jesus and Saint John. In their place, Kersey presented three figures, who appear to be affected by leucoderma, a skin disorder characterized by loss of pigmentation. Their faces are at once menacing and benevolent, a tension reiterated in the frame adorned with smiling skulls typical of Tantric or Buddhist art. Kersey finds artistic inspiration in “the walls in cities, especially in South India, where posters have been plastered on, one over the other, and in places people have torn them off so you have a new narrative mythology created.”1
1 Alexis Kersey, quoted in Gupta, Gargi, “Looking at India,” Business Standard, October 3, 2008,
http://www.business-standard.com/india/storypage.php?autono=316091 |
