Artworks

THE COLLECTOR

Hovnanian’s piece The Collector places the viewer as a voyeur into a dark domestic scene. A male figure, enthroned in a wing chair with his back to the viewer, sits before a fireplace with a deer head mounted above the mantle. The scene hints at a den or man-cave setting. The man has acquired a beauty queen quite literally as a trophy wife. Perched on her pedestal, she takes her place beside the collector-husband’s fireplace. Like the stag’s head above the mantle, she is proudly displayed and helpless to move. The beauty queen stares straight ahead, looking beyond the man. Her focus is seemingly inward, on her predicament.

The Collector, 2010