In works such as “Bloomsbury Revisited (Parroting)” the young man appears literally as décor, formally weighted in the same manner as other objects in the picture plane. This absence of the person infers a removal. The beautiful subject is unobtainable.
Set in their elaborate Bloomsbury interiors, Bas’ male subjects drift passively and eternally out of reach.
An avid collector of objects d’art, Bas’ possessions sometimes make an appearance in his paintings, and stand in, perhaps, as personal signifiers.
