Henry Orlik (b. 1947): A Rediscovery of Genius: Locked-up Dreams & Masterworks

Orlik seems to create his version of Hieronymous Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (1490-1510, Museo del Prado, Madrid) in which he employs a similar, although more muted, colour scheme of washed-out lime green and pinks. He organises an unearthly, nightmarish, toy-like garden, an exaggerated, strange fantasy, in which he uses child-, clown- and circus-like imagery. The garden is walled in like a flimsy, barbed fortress (like an old Wild West fort) on the left and at the back of the painting, the garden is enclosed by a crocheted fence, penetrated by an archway with a threadbare knitted gate covering the entrance. The barbed wall suggests that it is for keeping the inhabitants in rather than others out and the insubstantial crocheted wall suggests it would be easy to break-out, if anyone realised or chose to. Above the scene, geometric polystyrene clouds hang in the sky. The garden, like a macabre children’s play-area, is filled with strange, almost-recognisable, oddly-sized shapes. Objects that should be small are large and larger objects small. At the left side of the painting the flimsy wall creates a long shadow; at the front, in the shadows, steps lead down into the darkness of arched tunnels, dungeon or crypt. A bunch of wrapped flowers, which is, in fact, one rose lies like a cornucopia at the front of the painting, its twisted end appears to be a white-gloved clown’s hand which proffers a flower with two leaves, perhaps an offering to whatever will emerge from below.