Dexter Dalwood

Kurt cobain's Greenhouse, 2000

It's hard to identify this urban-perfect scene as the suicide site of a grunge god; only the idle guitar and empty chair suggest that somebody is absent. Dexter Dalwood imagines his scenes with the up-close-impersonal sterility of Hello! magazine spotlights; everything needed to know about the person is in the paint. Like Magritte's Empire of Light, Kurt Cobain's Greenhouse is both day and night; a lot of time has been spent contemplating in this room. Bright-lights big-city success blares in the distance, the boughs in bloom offer unattainable promise on the other side of the glass. While inside there's only a corroded pipe and pathetic box of posies to signify trampled self-esteem. Dexter Dalwood's painting is an allegory of the fallacy of heroism.