GEORGE CONDO (B. 1957)

“These recurrent motifs, however, also double the effect of the shared styles between subjects and, like the carefully rendered landscapes and skyscapes against which both objects and figures are set, produce a disruptive de Chirico-esque sense of universal displacement. But more than anything, perhaps, these apparently arbitrary collections of symbols that echo between works and worlds, and make sense only in the confines of the environments created for them, add up to a literal demonstration of what Condo would call 'artificial realism': the realistic representation of that which is artificial, so that it behaves in the manner of a natural form. This blend of artificial and real depends entirely on Condo's technical ability to level out orders of incongruousness.”
—S. Baker, George Condo: Painting Reconfigured, London, 2015, p. 31