Madama Butterfly
“The Power of Color” – an exhibition May 1 – June 30, 2017
Preparing for an exhibition is always a rediscovery of my original intentions in becoming an artist – specifically a painter. The act of painting, no matter who is present, is always a lonely act. Painting in the tradition of the innovative artist is always a terrifying challenge because you are obligated to go to the edge of your current knowledge and move forward into something that is implied in the work you have done before. My first inroads into the identity of myself as an artist led me to a very uncomfortable place with the realization that just as I had won over an audience to what I do as a painter I would be stepping away from them, seeking out new visual language.
My peers have always challenged me on my obsession with exhibiting in modest, unpretentious venues. I have always brushed them aside with the excuse that I don’t have a career as a painter. I have a mission as a Chicano Artist to keep on going beyond the cultural borders in the land and time in which I exist. I have endured their ridicule with a smugness of an “ego of steel.” At this point in my journey as an artist, I am enchanted by the fact that people are coming to the work I do and enjoying it without the curatorial poppycock that accompanies so many exhibitions of innovative work.
The title, “The Power of Color,” is designed to open up the eyes of audiences that generally see art through words. As a serious painter I have committed to confounding curatorial reason by grasping the straw of different aesthetic concepts and practices and applying them to the idea of Chicano muralism. Muralism is about conveying a human, spiritual, and intellectual message through the craft of wall decoration. It is a common occurrence in the multitude of significant human cultures. I have made a decision to bring mural concepts to the canvas “wall.” This exhibition could enjoy a subtitle of “Muralios and Fragments.” I will be working towards assembling canvas paintings that will lend themselves to the imagining of full-blown space specific paintings.
Why color is so essential is that the average person does not realize that our industrial evolution and our consumer culture has created an environment of so many potential color and composition possibilities that artists have surrendered mastery of color as an element in the visual language and have taken on the practice of designers to harmonize color in pre-existing color theories. Tragically, the audience becomes immune to the challenge of color compositions that force them to deliberate the visual experience and incorporate it into a cognitive understanding that compels them to go beyond their existing domestic color palette.
This is an invitation to spend more than seven seconds in front of each paintings in this exhibition and to understand that the artist has created a visual puzzle in color that must be processed in order to understand the nuances of communication.