Bill Rutherfoord: Allegory Of No Region

The museum I visited was the Polk Museum of Art in Lakeland, Florida. There were three main exhibitions open, but the one I spent the most time in was the Bill Rutherfoord: Allegory of No Region. The exhibition was a culmination of eleven large scale pieces of art by Bill Rutherfoord that were done over an eight-year period. The main series, Allegory of No Region, contains paintings that take the viewer through a series of colorful allegories full of symbolism, form, and narrative. Rutherfoord, an American artist from Virginia, references contemporary and historical issues spanning from the 18th century to present times by taking the African folk character Brer Rabbit on an epic adventure through time. The exhibition also includes another series of paintings that Rutherfoord made before the Allegory …show more content…
Inspired by the Book of Revelations, the artist explores many themes, such as the duality between abstraction and illustration, by making many international and art historical references.
The painting I chose to write about is called the Pavilion of Perpetual Present by Bill Rutherfoord and is part of the Apocalypse series. This oil on linen work of art is 70 x 74” and was made between 2008 and 2013. Rutherfoord draws inspiration from Winslow Homer’s The Briarwood Pipe and depicts two soldiers sitting in front of pavilion; however, in Rutherfoord’s depiction, one soldier has the head of a goat and the other has the head of a boar. The author uses an abundance of symbols and historical references to display the unpredictability and corruption of society; the title Pavilion of Perpetual Present means a tent of the endless, never changing present. On the left side