Galleri Steen

In this exhibit from 2005, Esdaile’s characteristic style emerged full-fledged. Prior to this show, Esdaile’s paintings focused primarily on exploring a balance between carefully constructive compositions of architectural details and a semi-abstract expression free-flowing Dionysian gestural brushstrokes and organic figures depicted with a complexity of painterly techniques of glazing and textures.

Here, however, Esdaile achieved a masterful development of what would become his iconic combination of pop-consciousness and classical dreamlike mythical images that emerge from a clear interplay of Apollonian and Dionysian compositions. This development was inspired by the existential psychologist Rollo May’s The Courage to Create where May examines the creative process and the balancing of the conscious orderly will, with the Apollonian and the raw chaotic creative force of the Dionysian impulse. Here Esdaile has implemented a process that mirrors May’s theory wherein works of balanced poetry are created that invite us into a deeper reflection on the nature of human consciousness and the individual perception of life.