Brand New Paint Job (Cézanne Train Car)

In Jon Rafman’s Brand New Paint Job (Cézanne Train Car), Paul Cézanne’s Interior of a Forest, 1880-1890, has been grafted to the interior of a train car. The shadowy and mysterious composition straddles the line between artistic sacrilege and homage; an ironic mash-up of nature and technology, the past and present. Rafman’s use of a train car interior is an appropriate counter balance to Cézanne’s rhythmic and chromatic forest. On each seat, dividing panel and doorway the same section of the painting is used, creating a unified and repetitive setting.