Property Line, 1990
The Colony, 1991
This mood is echoed in The Colony, which Maddox says is about "the necessities, sacrifices and consequences of participation in society". A man in the boat powers it with massive oars symbolic of the effort and resistance encountered in returning exiles to the fold. The four women guide the boat in, exercising the social control of women in creating community. The one in white appears to be in charge; she has a surety and self-possession akin to that of the women in The Islanders and Property Line. In these paintings Maddox may be adding another facet to a gradually evolving new archetype of Modern Woman - women as territorial, as defining boundary, though the boundaries are more subtle, psychic, than those males often defend.
: continue with the exhibition :
