Dreaming of tombs - Egyptian fantasies by Carlos Barahona Possollo

 

Carlos Barahona Possollo (born 1967) is an extremely talented and skilled contemporary figurative/narrative artist. Prolific and widely recognized. His work is almost always inspired by ancient history and mythology, almost always features frolicking and joyfully "indiscrete" nudity, most of it queer, often pointedly erotic. Unfortunately, his models don't really appeal to me much; too much polished pink-and-white gym-body flesh for my taste. And, in general, I think a lot the work is just trying too hard to shock. (I certainly understand and sympathize; many of us artists whose work is stylistically traditional feel a definite pressure to find ways to make it otherwise "edgy.") But I came across these fantaisies du tombeau - most of them a sort of "you are there" at the moment of a tomb's discovery - and I find all the detail and drama rather fun.