Sir Gawain & The Green Knight
The Sir Gawain and the Green Knight Gesso Panels were created for a far-reaching Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), still a work in progress. Based on the fourteenth century English poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, the panels reflect the narrative epic out of Arthurian legend. CJ used the poem as a springboard to tell a symbolist allegory of the old departing for the new, lost wisdom, and ultimately redemption. The gessoes fit brilliantly into CJ’s usual oeuvre; sumptuous and delicate, the panels integrate seamlessly into CJ’s visual vocabulary of line, color, and mass. As you move through the home in which the panels hang, there is nothing to mar the integrity. Every line, projection, and fabric, is integrated harmony; not only visually but symbolically, allegorically, and holistically.
There is no lack of interest in Arthurian legend in the world today. Not only is it the subject of popular novels, children’s stories, and art, but it is also still a ripe subject for researchers. Joy Brown, a University of Sydney PhD candidate and researcher, used Sir Gawain and the Green Knight as the topic of her doctoral thesis, and requested to use CJ’s gessoes of the same subject in her dissertation. She was fascinated with CJ’s depiction and telling of the story and understood that these gesso panels are more that just a painting.
