| I had some artistic talent as a child, so my parents decided to place me in a series of small private art schools. In one painting school, us kids were expected to copy existing art works: poor color repros culled from magazines and books such as Winslow Homer’s The Herring Net, 1885, and those big-eyed urchin paintings of Walter Keane. However, it was the landscapes and seascapes we painted most and not because we enjoyed it, no. This was the result of requests from aunts, uncles and grandparents who lead us on unwanted paths. |  |
Scapes – D. Dominick Lombardi
I had some artistic talent as a child, so my parents decided to place me in a series of small private art schools. In one painting school, us kids were expected to copy existing art works: poor color repros culled from magazines and books such as Winslow Homer’s The Herring Net, 1885, and those big-eyed urchin paintings of Walter Keane. However, it was the landscapes and seascapes we painted most and not because we enjoyed it, no. This was the result of requests from aunts, uncles and grandparents who lead us on unwanted paths.
Over the years, I have revisited the landscape theme in my work, but always felt it forced due to those early experiences. Currently, I am over painting all of those old 20, 30 and 40 year-old landscapes with abstract tattoo designs, and I sort of feel refreshed—like some huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. Ahhh, those memories of my youth.
This brings me to my current curatorial project, which is an analysis of the contemporary scape. This is a show which will feature a healthy cross-section of scapes and how scapes have changed with respect to meaning and use.
Joseph Ari Aloi, aka JK5, will offer a series of small Pop Surrealist works that will shatter your dreams, while exposing the underbelly of a Pop Surreal edge. Aloi, who is also a very well known tattoo artist, brings to the field a most curious esthetic that encapsulates decades of unbridled energy while projecting an unrelenting urge to invent.
Saul Becker takes a more diffused approach. He addresses the state of contemporary spatial thinking from a number of vantage points including architecture and environmental concerns while creating a most compelling juxtaposition of variables and concepts.
Toc Fetch, on the other hand, takes a more narrative route where subconscious fears mingle with throwback luminousness. Using great drawing skill and technique, Fetch takes us to a place where one expects to see Vincent Price or Robert Mitchum—you know, that Cape Fear mood.
The art of Ron Johnson is the most subtle. It sneaks up on you in layers, both literally and figuratively, while showing us a state of semi-consciousness that pulls at our very understanding of the physical world by bringing the periphery to the center.
Then there are the stunningly cool realities of Michael Perrone. Perrone’s paintings play with our experiences with those out of the way places steeped in sociable segues and sleaze while finding some magical beauty in it all. It’s poetry—a link of images, textures and colors that delight the eye and mind.
Liza Phillips makes her case for antiquity in suggesting ruins of a modern world where the past is held in reverence, while the future looks bleak and untamed. Yet there is redemption in her work, as if life, all life manages to co-mingle in a place that is overrun with odd boundaries and limited access.
Kent Rush’s photographs also manipulate perception in the way they frame the world around us. His art makes monuments out of mole hills like the old masters of Northern Europe where all the world was staged and when we had the time to seek and experience life in greater blocks of time.
The paintings of Patricia Smith take hold in our subconscious. Her images are as elusive and solid at the same time, like memories accessed or emotions that linger. Her paintings evoke a spiritual presence while they question the here and now.
Alejandra Villasmil plays politics. Her images attend to the more discouraging sides of modern living, yet can also be quite magical and uplifting. Whatever the case, Villasmil always seems to find a way of delivering her message painlessly, and with great patience and purpose. All of these accomplished artists must be seen as masterful messengers in a mucked up world.
