A large and enthusiastic crowd opened the new UNREAL SURREAL show on March 4 at Five Deuces Galleria, in St. Petersburg! UNREAL SURREAL is a terrific collection of works inspired by Salvador Dalí and other artists, writers, and intellectuals of the Surreal Movement.
Photo by Aristiles Morales
St. Petersburg’s Salvador Dalí Museum is an unending inspiration for artists and art lovers who come from all over the world to visit. It’s part of what makes St. Pete a terrific art town. It’s top of my list of local attractions when out-of-town friends drop in.
“There is only one difference between a madman and me. The madman thinks he is sane. I know I am mad.” Salvador DalÍ.
Few artists exploited the ambiguity between madness and genius more than DalÍ. I tried to capture that ambiguity in my From the Inside, Looking Out. The artist gazes at the viewer through chopped-up bits of colors and lines, a prisoner somehow triumphant over the chaos of his mind. Is he a madman or a genius? Does it matter? It’s art! And above all else, fun!
From the Inside, Looking Out
This and other UNREAL SURREAL pieces by area artists will be available at Five Deuces Galleria through March 27!
Abstract Art: Slicing it Up
I enjoy interweaving two (and sometimes more) images together, so the viewer might get an impression beyond what a complete image on its own would have provided. The viewer might have a flash of recognition of one, or the other, and want to go back and forth between them, to let the brain piece together what the original might have looked like. Or, the viewer may choose to just enjoy the overall effect and not worry too much about how it was achieved.
I think it’s interesting to see and understand works at multiple levels. There may be many narratives at play, especially in a large work, and it’s fun to slowly absorb and see those vignettes.
In a work such as Dalí’s Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire the interplay between the two title images creates two distinct illusions. One stands in front of it, and can bring one or the other to conscious awareness.
Slices of Frankfurt
But in Dalí’s Portrait of Gala looking onto the Mediterranean sea which from a distance of 20 meters is transformed into a portrait of Abraham Lincoln (Homage to Rothko) the Lincoln portrait only becomes visible at a distance. The two dominant images can only be seen at varying distances from the painting.
My Slices of Frankfurt takes a much simpler approach, using vertical strips to interweave two sets of two photographic prints. This is another piece from photos I took during last fall’s trip to Germany. Can you pick out the four images?
Lost and Found
Collage Art: Tearing it Up
As I continue to recover from the Palm Springs assault, I am drawn to kind and gentle companions and places. When a friend took me to the Mead Botanical Gardens in Winter Park, Florida, we took a lot of pictures and some of them turned into another new collage, Lost and Found.
At first I tried to slice and interweave some of the images, but I didn’t like the result. So I tore up the prints and began to arrange the torn pieces. I got in the flow, it felt right, and this is the result. I hope you enjoy it!
