Staff's Choice: "Attempt to Speak Clearly" by Ummarid 'Tony' Eitharong
/Ummarid 'Tony' Eitharong, Attempt to Speak Clearly, 1987, Charcoal on paper, Polk Museum of Art Permanent Collection 1987.7.
One of my favorite works in our collection is Attempt to Speak Clearly by Ummarid “Tony” Eitharong (who just so happens to be one of my favorite artists in the collection!). I was first attracted to Tony’s work when I saw his abstract paintings at Mayfaire by-the-Lake. I was drawn to the intricate way that he combined thick blocks of acrylic paint with small touches of charcoal, paper, pastel, and other materials to create an abstract work that felt so balanced and complex. It was so surprising to me to see something that inventive and profound being produced here in Lakeland — and right there at Mayfaire.
I met Tony while I was an intern at the Polk Museum of Art, and we quickly became friends. As an artist who has been traveling around the country for more than 40 years, showing his work at art festivals, he demonstrated to me what it takes to make a living as a contemporary artist, and I've been fortunate to witness firsthand through him how an artist's process and style evolves.
It wasn't until a couple of years into working at the Museum that I saw this piece in our collection. I had always known Tony as an abstract painter, so it was amazing to see a work like Attempt to Speak Clearly coming from the same artist. The photo-realistic, life-size self-portrait in charcoal towers above the viewer. It brings you into the space, and you can feel the questioning and the pain of an artist working and struggling to make a living doing what they love most, creating art. This piece was created not long after Tony had a work stolen from an art gallery. I see the paper, rock, and scissors as symbolic of those times in our lives where we come to a crossroads and have to make a choice. For Tony, after the devastating loss of a piece — one that surely took tens of hours to complete and in which he had invested a part of himself — I imagine he felt at a loss as to what to do, wondering if he should continue with art as a career. I asked Tony about the work, and he said it was something like that, that it was about all of the games that he had to play in the art world. He was at a place where he had to decide between creating artwork that would be sellable and simultaneously truly expressed who he was as an artist, his “attempt to speak clearly.”
-Matt Belcher, Preparator & Design Manager