ARTISTS
Pip Brant
Adriano Buergo
Randy Burman
Ana Albertina Delgado
Miguel Dotres
Tomas Esson*
Mary Larsen
Rafael Lopez-Ramos
Sergio Payares
Natasha Perdomo
Magin Perez Ortiz
*On loan from the Stefania Barrionuevo Collection
Opening Nov 7th, 7:00 pm
1480 NE 131 St. Unit 105
North Miami FL 33161
Ph 305 338 2968
Curated by Rafael Lopez-Ramos
cooperation with Sergio Payares Studio in support of Miami local artists
This exhibition was originally intended to include a larger number of artists and, for different reasons, it was finally reduced to 11. Then there was the coincidence that the opening will be on November, 11th month of the year, turning the coincidence into synchronicity. Thus the 11:11 numerical sequence popped-up. There is no better image / concept to found an artistic project on than these numerals, evocative of human growing and spiritual enlightening –a path especially important in times of turmoil and distress as the ones humankind is going through now.
Nonetheless, this show was and is going to be about gathering our works on a true spirit of friendship, and the fact that these works result from a similar concept of art that seeks a balance between a thoughtful narrative and a crafting that corresponds to its aesthetical and semiotics needs, but is in no way an end by itself. Art is a way of thinking with the tip of the fingers while teaching its viewers to think with their eyes.
Pip Brant, Two Girls and a Donkey, 2014
Hasenblut (rabbit blood) on Paper, 10” x 8”.
Pip Brant, Tommy and Harumi, 2014
Hasenblut (rabbit blood) on Paper, 10” x 8”.
Pip Brant, Big Head, 2014
Hasenblut (rabbit blood) on Paper, 10” x 8”.
Pip Brant, Looking Out, 2014
Hasenblut (rabbit blood) on Paper, 10” x 8”.
I have been raising rabbits for meat for three years, but seeing the hasenblut drawings of Joseph Beuys on my last trip to Germany, talked to me.
So making full use of my rabbit project, I am using their blood as pigment. I have gone from straight painting, monotyping, to silk screening the blood and a combination of the three different options of image making.
This works honors the lives of the rabbits in way that is partly performative. This brings a level of immediate sacrifice to the giving of life.
Pip Brant, artist statement
Adriano Buergo, Palms & Roller coaster, 2012
Acrylic on canvas, 30" x 47".
“Adriano Buergo is among those Cuban artists ambidextrous enough to integrate his art into the dynamics and aesthetic itinerary of a collective such as Puré [which he co-founded] and at the same time successfully create an individual body of work, both in the context of the so-called “Prodigious Decade” or “Cuban Renaissance”: the mythic 1980s.”
“Utopia, transformative will, disillusionment, exodus, rootlessness, and reunion: all are experiences common to the lives of artists from Buergo’s generation who, like him, ended up emigrating—some without the possibility of return, an option that Roto did have. As a result, this work and its creator became a parable about situations in which many Cubans, artists or not, found themselves.
Buergo’s dexterousness was already apparent in previous works such as Naturaleza Muerta–Naturaleza Viva (Still Death–Still Life, 1988), a painting born of the irreverence and scatological humor flaunted by Puré—an art collective created in 1986 by Buergo and classmates Lázaro Saavedra, Ciro Quintana, Ana Albertina Delgado, and Ermy Taño. As Mosquera wrote in the previously quoted catalogue, “Buergo is the painter of Cuban filth,” and his attitude was that of a participating critic—a position perhaps symbolized by his description of “a cross composed of a loaf of bread and a turd, painted by the artist,” which corresponds to Naturaleza Muerta–Naturaleza Viva.”
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Randy Burman, Contemplation, 2008
Collage, Black marker drawing with cut paper, 20" x 26".
Randy Burman, An Elephant Never Perplexes, 2008
Collage, Black marker drawing with cut paper, 20" x 26".
Randy Burman, Seeking Meaning in a Glass Half Full or Half Empty, 2008
Collage, Black marker drawing with cut paper, 20" x 26".
Randy Burman, Self-realization Upon Meeting a Glass Half Full or Half Empty, 2008
Collage, Black marker drawing with cut paper, 20" x 26".
I have a serious preoccupation with the intuitive aspects of art making. There is an internal dichotomy that drives my creative process on several levels: I’m compelled to make serious statements, but find myself subverting that goal with irreverent humor. Precise execution is integral, yet playful strategies are often a point of departure. Though I toggle between these parts of my practice, the recurring result is work that engages the alchemy of juxtaposed elements, meanings and scale.
Though the execution is very exact, the starting point is often circumstantial. Placing found objects next to each other might act as the beginning of a piece. Other times work comes out of the leftover materials from separate projects or the appropriation of visual material from a swathe of sources. The resulting sculptures, installations, paintings and print media explore themes of metaphysical confrontation and identity while often encouraging dynamic interaction with the audience.
Randy Burman, artist statement
Ana Albertina Delgado, La noche y su yoyo, 2008
Acrylic on canvas, 24" x 18.
Ana Albertina Delgado, El reflejo de Irma, 2008
Acrylic on canvas, 24" x 18.
Ana Albertina Delgado, Danza con fuego, 2008
Acrylic on canvas, 24" x 18.
Ana Albertina Delgado, who has produced a marvelous body of paintings in oil on canvas, in which the use of color is of fundamental significance, prefers in her drawings the delicacy of color pencils – so closely associated to our childhood lucubrations. The artist uses color in a precise manner, concentrating it in details, neuralgic zones where the dramatic tension of the narrated or suggested story is concentrated in the manner of a “chakra”, an energetic center which will trigger the precious moment of illumination.
Ana Albertina’s peculiar universe is charged with the most varied influences contained in Cuban popular culture, especially the heritage linked to the peasant and Afro-Cuban imagery, the popular Mexican culture, as well as the feminist and feminine tradition that floods all her work.
Like a delicate thread, Ana’s stroke sews one drawing to another to create a continued history that is born in itself, takes the course of the sensual line and becomes definitely installed in the viewer. Such is the magic that inhabits this series of drawings in which the artist achieves impressive synthesis and overflowing sensuality.
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Miguel Dotres, Transparent Melrose Ship (Undefined Space Vision), 2001
Watercolor, postcard, corners on paper, 28" x 20".
Miguel Dotres, North Side Royal Palm, 2001
Acrylic, watercolor, postcard, on paper, 28" x 20".
“The dawnof modernity and, ultimately, ofphenomenology, thoughtthat the range ofmeanings ofthe geometryhas to be changed. Interestingly,itis visible in Dotres’work, which realigns the modelwithits originsin natureand domesticsurroundings.The diaphanous, billowingwatercolorribbons remindsbanana leavesand waves, like light thatseepsthrough thehorizontal blinds– called PersianasinCubaandare a stapleof latecolonialarchitecturesuchasthevibrantlydecoratedwindowscolorfulstained glass. Light is the oldestandubiquitoussymbolof the divineandthe infinite,hasbeenunitedfor centuries inCubato other models thatpermeateseverydayliving spaces.
The geometrybegins to revealits newdestinationeverydaysignificancein tropicalhyphens.”
Ricardo Pau-Llosa, Miguel Dotres: Geometría íntima, o las paradojas del hábitat
Tomas Esson (Stefania Barrionuevo Collection)
Después de la tormenta, 2014
Oil on canvas, 24" x 24".
Tomas Esson (Stefania Barrionuevo Collection)
Bandera de Junio, 2003, oil on canvas, 24" x 18".
Tomas Esson (Stefania Barrionuevo Collection)
Hula-Hula (sketch), 2014, charcoal on paper, 13" x 13".
“...the aesthetic category of the grotesque retains certain transgressive capacities and political thrust, as it renders the terms for an inversion of social hierarchies, for a confrontation of xenophobia and racism, and asserting the identity of alternative sexual orientations. Painter Tomás Essonrenders contemporary versions of this subversive character of the grotesque.”
“...he depicted Cuban and American flags. He replaced the stars by phallus-like horns, whereas the stripes consist in grotesque sequences of glans, vulvas, thick mouths, tongues, teeth, ejaculations, and butts. Esson points both his humor and his rage against nationalistic symbols that have been emblems not only for lofty values, but also for intolerance and chauvinism.
Contemporary artists have used flags to subvert patriotism and make political commentaries. For instance, David Hammons changed the colors of the American flag, and turning it into an African-American Flag. Hammons suggests the possibility of writing an alternative story, perhaps with different values. Chilean Arturo Duclos made a flag of his own country, comprised of sixty-six human femurs, in an obvious reference to a past of murder and disappearance during Pinochet’s dictatorship.”
Mary Larsen, Crossroads, 2014
Mixed media on wood panel, 16” x 20”.
Mary Larsen, Dreamscape, 2014
Mixed media on wood panel, 16” x 20”.
Mary Larsen, The respite was brief, 2014
Mixed media on a book, 14.5” x 10”.
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Mary Larsen, Conscious of desire, 2014
Mixed media on a book cover, 14.5” x 10”.
Through a meditative process of layering paint, ink, paper, found images, maps and silkscreen, Mary Larsen creates dream-like landscapes that are at once disorienting yet somehow familiar. Disparate elements work together to create an ephemeral atmosphere of violence and beauty, filled with contrasts and contradictions; balance through imbalance. By obscuring and revealing, each layer unfolds the narrative. The power of nature, history and chance coalesce to form an unsettling place that glimpses the possibility of hope. Each layer adds richness and depth, creating intimacy. Man is overwhelmed by the sublime power of nature and the pessimistic state of the world. The individual is depicted as a solitary figure in nature, all of his/her energy spent, on the edge of danger. The process is a transformative experience that informs the work. Images of violence and war and the power of nature are transformed into beauty and hope.
Mary Larsen, artist statement
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Rafael López-Ramos, The Noise Abatement Society Tapes, 2014
Acrylic on canvas, 26 1/8” x 37¾”.
Rafael López-Ramos, Yawning All The Way to Heaven, 20014
Acrylic on canvas, 11” x 14”.
Rafael López-Ramos, As Above, So Below, 20014
Acrylic on canvas, 11” x 14”.
"Rafael Lopez-Ramos’ artwork inherits the rebellious spirit and legacy of most of the 20th century, from Rauschenberg’s Combines and Lichtenstein’s paradoxes to Bad Painting, passing trough Malevich and Magritte, the multi-imagery of David Salle, the disturbing messages of Brazilian political artists Meireles and Oiticica, to the recognizable civic pathos of the dynamic, anti-establishment 1980s Cuban art."
“In Wonderland there are no hierarchies. The most innocuous objects –icons of our everyday life- coexist with heroes, politicians, and legendary dragons, among other characters, all of them amalgamated into an exhuberant pastiche that embodies our contemporary society.” (...) “Irony and kitsch are the two main resources threading through the discourse of the series. López-Ramos’ mordant approach is deeply rooted in an extended feeling of disappointment and decay experienced daily by common people in our globalized world, where trust and a sense of the future become merely a mirage, achievable only though the fallacy of the mass media.”
Janet Batet, ArtNexus Magazine Issue 91, 2014, p. 134.
Sergio Payares
Energía traducida en rojo, 2013
Sanguine and graphite on paper, 29½” x 41½”.
The art of Sergio Payares appears to resist interpretation. In fact, it is necessary to view it attentively (which is doubly rewarding). Payares proposes a search for equidistant forms constituted by connective and angular linear strokes and luminous edges, with a doubtful tonal restriction. His composition is not geometric in the manner of optical art, neither is it abstract in the strict sense of the term. Color is not and end to itself, but rather a medium to provide a meaning to the artist's signature style.
The art of Sergio Payares suggests positive encounters. His art speaks about social co-existence. Payares' symbolism goes back from abstract to the concrete and from the universal to the particular. He prefers to highlight balance and fortunate coincidences. Communication - the artist tells us cannot exist by and for itself. Human interaction is what contributes, inevitably, to the progress of the human being.
Conceptualmente, y partiendo de ciertos presupuestos minimalistas que no tienen otro sentido que evitar lo superfluo, Payares dispone su propuesta a partir de configurar en sus obras acciones ideográficas que hacen de la carencia todo un ideario estético. Este ideario lo reordena visualmente, a través de la composición de grandes planos sometidos a un paciente proceso de veladuras que hacen aparecer y desaparecer ciertas manchas de colores, provocando así un efecto de densidad atmosférica que, junto con los colores pasteles, hacen menos patética y más ilusoria la frágil comunicación entre los despojos de seres sobrevivientes que pueblan sus obras.
La pintura de Sergio Payares está hecha de restos de sueños y ausencias. Acercarnos a ella es iniciar un diálogo silencioso con nuestras propias carencias. Entonces, durante este imprevisible diálogo, sucede algo que nos transporta del mero placer retiniano al ejercicio mental.
Natasha Perdomo,The Bridge, 2014
Acrylic on canvas, 33" x 44 ½".
Natasha Perdomo chooses the landscape to reflect on postindustrial civilization while giving a wink to certain kitschy aesthetic traditionally associated to this painting genre, which brings to mind Komar and Melamid's research on this aesthetic issue. Her work however, brings together the typical backlighting of Romanticism and a Surrealistic random juxtaposition of images freely flowing from the unconscious mind, to create serene visions often infused with a nightmarish atmosphere that allow us to make our own free associations and readings. Thus, The Bridge seems to refer to the rustic zigzagging road that disappears within the clouds into the infinity but it really is a metaphor on information technology and its revolution on the way we communicate, learn, and work, bringing a huge leap to human civilization. The over scaled tablet standing on the left side of the composition shows the logos of social networking services, as virtual doors to other people, while the secluded landscape surrounding it rather suggest a state of isolation and loneliness which finds a correlate in the screen background image, a virtual representation of the sky, juxtaposed to the real thing. It all carries a sour-sweet synecdoche of the new cybernetic culture dominating 21st Century and its ambivalence as bliss and anguish.
RLR
Magín Pérez Ortíz,Proyecto inútil para paraíso inconcluso, 2012
Oil on canvas, triptych, 353/8" x 71".
In visual terms my research took as initial source of reference the designs and projects dreamed by Leonardo Da Vinci for his war machines; in a postmodern gesture I have condiment them with the edgy spirit of Dada and Russian Constructivism.
The system of gears, pulleys and helm of my winged machines, always wish an impossible escape, being just portraits of the livelihood mechanics on rudimentary means; although the structure of the idea always consciously transgress the thin and limited walls of chauvinism.
Magín Pérez Ortíz, artist statement
Inventing the Possible is the story of visual artists who defy their otherness and enter the realm of 21st century aesthetics not only to lay their historic claim on it, but also to challenge the framework which defines and polices its boundaries. This exhibition engages Miami artists in their articulations of the lines of continuities. What comes out is that we do not cease to be related simply because separated by race, nationality or color.
