An abstract I call Bonsai.

I have kept all the definitive elements

developed in 2011.

The format is as diminutive as the eponymous plant -

“Music is his motivation when it comes to painting. Not just any music, but classical music. “It is more mind oriented, more abstract,” he told me. “I don’t want to do a narrative.” ”

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http://www.urchicago.com/features/2011/7/22/artist-feature-irvin-almonte.html

LOCATION: 4866 N. Clark
Saturday, 6/25/11. 7-11PM.
Open invite.
http://www.artcx.com/

Brief:
Our mission at Artist Central Exchange is to provide the community with a forum to express their minds and creativity in an open and free manner. The diversity of thought among our artists, and an atmosphere of openness and acceptance provide for an exchange of ideas and experiences that help us each to deepen our faith, grow spiritually, share our gifts and talents with the rest of the world.

That said, its TIME TO PARTY. It’s been awhile since we came correct with another awesome event, so we figured what better time to celebrate our mission of openness and acceptance other than PRIDE WEEK. This event will celebrate not only the LBGT community, but the fight against discrimination, racism, and prejudice.

A.C.E. Productions, in conjunction with Grant Stokes (star of “Fall Away”) begins the promotion of our new film “Blood and Water” (currently in preproduction). Check out Grant’s previous film www.FallAwayFilm.com

The “Elegant Universe / Mahler Project” attempts to conflate the ideas in the two sets of paintings labeled “Maria Callas” and “Automatism”. The objective is to serve simultaneously the idealized structure essayed in Maria Callas and the exhibitionist pole explored in Automatism. Below are the paintings which will serve as a preface to the Mahler Project.

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This marks the beginning of the Elegant Universe series. It suggests a multidimensional space through form and color, creating the basis for this Conceptual project.

Quantum Weirdness. 2010. Oil on canvas. 36 x 36 in.

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This is the second piece in the Elegant Universe project. Largely, it explores the possibilities of painting an abstracted landscape. The basic elements and their properties defined in the previous piece, “Quantum Weirdness”, are present, but liberties were taken in the stylistic approach.

Untitled #2 - Orange. 2010. Oil on wood panel. 48 x 24 in.

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Third in the Elegant Universe series. In this painting, the elementary forms/colors begin to flourish. Notably, the blues (Prussian and Pthalocyanine) become more expressive lines and important compositional elements. The reds (limited to the deep Helios) also develop in character.

Bouquet. 2010. Oil on canvas. 48 x 48 inches.

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Fourth in the Elegant Universe series. It is at this point that Gustav Mahler’s music becomes an integral part of the Elegant Universe project. The basic properties are more or less maintained. A new element is added: the admixture of the red and blue families. This is a statement that alludes to the conflation of ideas in Maria Callas and Automatism previously mentioned. Still, the confabulations through hue (and form) remain largely separated between the two families. ”Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen” is from the song cycle Des Knaben Wunderhorn. Text and translation of the lieder may be found on recmusic.org

Wo die schönen Trompeten blasen. 2010. Oil on canvas. 30 x 30 in.

These Callas paintings are stills from concert videos available on YouTube, an upstart startup that has since permitted an unprecedented dissemination of videos of virtually all calibers and contents to anyone who seeks them.

In the 1950s, the artist Jasper Johns took similarly ubiquitous images such as STOP signs and the American flag and painted them onto canvas in simple but conceptually sound composition. The canvas was the flag which was the painting, giving a unique identity and psychological depth to the object. Like Duchamp with his objet trouvé, or readymades, this surprisingly simple concept gave reality to an impossible irony: these non-art objects were bereft of their primary function and instead were appreciated from an aesthetic perspective, thus claiming that art, which until then had been principally of retinal capacity, can enter the realm of ideas and thought.

Johns’ seminal work laid the foundation for the Pop Art movement, perhaps the greatest exponent of which is Andy Warhol. Unlike Johns, however, Warhol responded to his new media-crazed society by merely stating the facts, through an emotionally detached stance from his [literally] mechanically produced, iconographic silk screens. His oeuvre lucidly placed contemporary society in front of the mirror.

Today, that approach to society and art is passé: the shock value produced by television and the media has totally run its course, and [re]stating that it has desensitized the audience has itself become completely banal. The statement has already become the concept.

The Internet has given us a lot more of something: a choice. Information, that invaluable commodity of the modern era, has become a new kind of objet trouvé: one that carries an irony somewhere between Duchamp’s and Johns’ personal, arbitrary choices and Warhol’s detachment from his specific subjects. Only, this time, we can sound the information not just for external phenomena, but for evidence of an individual’s intrinsic motivations. The Callas videos are my personal searches, but I can’t have predicted choosing to incline towards this art form. As available information, the Callas videos are the readymades. As found objects, they obtain a personal meaning. As paintings, they are an insight into my own psychic struggle between the exhibitionist and the idealized poles.

In these paintings, I’m interested in releasing, through the process of portrayal, that psychic struggle; the tension between the diametrically opposed poles of the self. The simple compositional elements intend to underline the subconscious message. The psychological depth comes easily to me because I absorb Callas effortlessly. Her characterization is always complete, in depth, and elegantly within the bounds set forth by the composer: no unnecessarily long-held notes, no excessive gestures. She said whenever you don’t know what to do, just listen to the music because the composer has already seen through it. There’s an aria in Adriana Lecouvreur by Cilea, in which Adriana, a singer, sings to the crowd “Ecco…Io son l’umile ancella del Genio creator.” (I am the humble servant of the creative genius). Callas sang it like no other; perhaps she understood it best, serving both her principles and her respect for the composer. In the course of her artistic life, she damaged her voice, but the drama required it, and she never compromised her artistic integrity for the sake of safety or “pretty sound”.

I share the drive with any artist who would seek to appreciate truly the achievements of the Modernist giants, as Johns, Warhol and the like, while simultaneously engaging in contemporary society with relevant immediacy. I don’t think my work is revolutionary. I think it’s in the same vein outlined by those above and their contemporaries. While undoubtedly a product of my society (albeit I grew up in a very different one), I do my best and remain selfishly uncompromising.