"Mistica Caravaggi"

Caravaggi seems intent on making the viewer uncomfortable, not so much because she wishes to share any inner torment, but because she is recalcitrant. She mischievously withholds the presence of pure beauty. Something always seems askew, but one isn't always quite sure what that something is, which makes for a particularly uneasy situation. Her paintings are, in addition, mordant. Caravaggi snickers. Chills may ensue.

The eerie subjects in these works are often so emotionless and pale that they seem like they might be corpses. They don't speak, not because they won't, but because the can't. Caravaggi probes what is typically depicted as beautiful until she discovers something ugly or demented. Flowers have skulls at their center, a beautiful woman waltzes with Satan, and a woman has a child who has a misshapen head and shares none of her elegant features. It is not so much that Caravaggi believes the world to be ugly, but it is her desire to provoke her audience. She demonstrates, much like Stravinsky, the power of cacophony.

-Eugene Hwang