Description

Carlos Quinto Kemm’s Rembrandt’s Hare unfolds like a dream caught between time and imagination, where the old masters whisper their secrets through layers of paint and collage. At the heart of the piece stands an aging artist, his visage lifted from an inverted Rembrandt self-portrait, a ghostly echo of the Dutch master’s introspective genius. His gaze is contemplative, as if searching for the very essence of creativity itself. Wrapped in garments reminiscent of Rembrandt’s rich chiaroscuro, he stands in a liminal space, where past and present bleed together in an eternal act of creation.

At his feet, a magician’s hat lies casually discarded, yet its presence brims with mystery. From its depths emerges the titular hare—a creature of myth, magic, and mischief, embodying the spontaneity and unpredictability of the creative process. The hare, with its watchful eyes, seems aware of its symbolic weight, a reminder that art is often born from the unexpected, from moments of playfulness hidden within the artist’s toil.

And yet, to the right of the central figure, a young girl leaps before a grand painted screen, her movement breaking through the stillness like an exclamation of life. She is not merely an observer; she is the embodiment of youthful exuberance, the raw energy of inspiration. The screen behind her, detailed and self-contained, is no mere backdrop—it is a complete composition in and of itself, summarizing the entire work in its layered textures and intricate design. It acts as both a mirror and a frame, capturing the essence of the piece, reflecting themes of artistic legacy, reinvention, and the eternal dance between structure and spontaneity.

Kemm’s meticulous collage technique ensures that every element within the painting is charged with meaning. The interplay of textures, the interplay of light and shadow—a deliberate nod to Rembrandt’s masterful handling of illumination—adds a depth that feels almost sculptural. The entire composition becomes an act of homage, not just to Rembrandt, but to art itself: to the act of looking, of interpreting, of creating.

In Rembrandt’s Hare, the artist is both a conjurer and a craftsman, his tools of the trade as powerful as any magician’s wand. The hare, the girl, the screen—all serve as fragments of a larger story, a narrative of artistic lineage, of invention, of the ceaseless interplay between mastery and play. Kemm’s work does not merely ask us to look; it asks us to leap—like the girl, like the hare—into the unknown, where the real magic of creation begins.