Lady Macbeth. 2007. Oil on Canvas. 48 X 36 inches.

Irvin Almonte’s work focuses principally on exploring the power of music as an agent of human emotions and psyche. That is not to say that he attempts to translate one art form into another, but rather, that music is the primary medium–a most important source of inspiration. Music of the classical and operatic genres is the form, and Maria Callas the instrument, in which he finds the widest range of emotional freedom. As one does not engage in Baroque the same way as in Impressionist music, so his work is not unified by a definitive, stylistic approach. He places a very different set of expectations of nature when he paints landscapes from those he sets for the less visual, imaginative concepts when he paints “automatisms”.

Insofar as his oeuvre is not unified by single theme or structure, it aims to raise the following questions that are, perhaps, symptomatic of [the purported movement that is] “Post-Modernism”: How does one define something that is constantly evolving? Are clearly delineated patterns necessary to distinguish one thing from another? If something, such as an artist, is the inevitable and only source of a set of outputs, even if their characteristics vary widely, wouldn’t singularity in meaning be an a priori concept?  Whatsoever may inspire an artist to produce works of art, and whatever ultimate form each may take, the myriad characteristics that distinguish one work from another are altogether defined as a singular oeuvre whose fundamental truth preexists in the artist himself.

So long as the artist possesses a steadfast set of principles and remains uncompromising of his ideals, then anything he produces is filtered and unified by his own definitive aesthetic values. A central tenet should be that the artist’s persona is the guiding principle for describing an oeuvre. Observing this would relax the constraints imposed on an artist by expectations set forth by the inadequate notion that one’s output should necessarily follow a clearly identifiable style. Ignoring such prerequisite is especially important in contemporary society, one in which the unprecedented dissemination of instant information through the Internet transcends the boundaries of both space and time, allowing for a limitless potential for stylistic predilections.