Liz Neal Lotus Eater

In Book IX of Homer’s The Odyssey, Odysseus recounts how his ships are buffeted by winds for nine days en route from Troy to Greece. They finally come to rest in a land populated by Lotophagi, men who eat lotus plants. The lotus eaters are benign but their food is not, sending Odysseus’s men into a trance-like state in which they lose all desire to return to Greece. Instead, oblivious to Odysseus’s orders, they wish only to remain in a lotus-induced state of dreamy forgetfulness.

Indolent decadence permeates Liz Neal’s new works. An exquisitely painted Native American couple are locked in an embrace against a deep blue background. Their total immersion in each other belies the inevitable doom awaiting their way of life. Nearby a butch young man poses, flexing his muscles. Text is scrawled over his taut body, ‘Fuck me in the morning when I can feel it.’ Sexual and sensual arousal are only momentarily possible in those brief hours of consciousness after waking, before the day grows older and the very capacity to feel is replaced by half-conscious lethargy.

Neal’s men and women, culled from high-street pornography and forgotten popular imagery, are objects of our own lazy desire. Her manipulation of paint expresses the physicality of flesh and continues a long tradition that starts with Titian. The freedom of her brushstrokes emphasises the transitory nature of what is caught on canvas - youth inevitably fades and pleasure is followed by comedown.

Time passes and wastes in these works. A tea set and a coffee set are invitingly arrayed for the viewer, yet their razor-sharp edges are a warning for those who choose to stop and linger. For as with Odysseus’ men, relaxation is not momentary, it is the first step to an eternal languor where the very capacity to feel emotion or sensation is gently replaced by an all-consuming comfortable numbness.

In the afternoon they came unto a land In which it seemed always afternoon. All round the coast the languid air did swoon, Breathing like one that hath a weary dream. Full-faced above the valley stood the moon; And like a downward smoke, the slender stream Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.

from The Lotus-Eaters by Lord Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)

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Liz Neal "Lotus Eater"