about the exhibition |
Why is Toronto so afraid of colour?
By RM Vaughan
It’s cliché; but it’s true: Toronto is cold, tough
town for artists.
We make our creative types polevault over high walls that would kill
Montreal or Winnipeg artists, spoiled as they are by supportive, arts-positive
populations. (And, in the case of Quebec, entire wings of the federal
government.)
Take, for instance, the case of Toronto-based painter Raffael Iglesias.
His work is regularly exhibited in Latin America and Europe, where it
sells faster than fresh-cut flowers, but he can’t seem to move
much product in Toronto. Which is puzzling, since his paintings are
gorgeous parades of colour and masterful feats of culture jamming.
“I don’t know why, but the Europeans like me more,”
Iglesias tells me when I visit his latest show, at Peak Gallery. “Toronto
seems to be a bit afraid of my work because it is so bright and colourful.
I think my paintings are very serious, but they don’t look severe
or dark.- and Toronto likes dark work. I thing Toronto buyers associate
‘seroius art’ with very minimal pieces that have a limited
colour scheme.”
Or to be less polite, the towns art establishment is clenched tighter
than the Pope’s fist. A pity, because buyers are missing out on
a limited time offer to buy Iglesias’s work before it inevitably
skyrockets in price- an event that will undoubtedly and I’m sad
to say , typically happen once local curators and buyers get the thumbs
up from the almighty New York or Berlin. If, as the old Stranglers song
goes, everybody loves you when you’re dead, Toronto loves you
when you are deified in the Village Voice (but no minute before).
Well screw’em. Iglesias’s new work are his best to date-
a bold leap forward from his previous work, which tended to be attractive
but often to small to contain all his manic image hoarding. These days,
he’s working big, and the payoff is a series of huge paintings
that are as busy as a Vegas floorshow and just as sexy.
Iglesias’s layers spray- painted stencils over blocks of hot,
even toxic metallic car-paint colours, add more stencils then attacks
the canvases again with the scratched on drawings, another layer of
shimmering metallic paint, splashes of varnish (and nail polish?) and
even solarized kids stickers. To call these works busy would be like
calling Proust’s novels long winded- busy aint the half of it.
You can stand in front of of an Iglesias painting and find dozens of
things to look at, all of them as pretty as fireworks. Look again and
you’ll see a dozen more.
Through Iglesias’s work uses everything from Latin American movie
posters to graffiti tags, anti Bush propaganda to biker tattoos. (he
runs a side business as a tattoo artist), his work never looks accidental.
The paintings are not messy- rather they are as carefully organized
as a beloved Curio Cabinet. It takes a lot of quite planning to make
such beautiful noise.
Listen up Toronto.
Raffael Iglesias, New Work, Peak Gallery, 23 Morrow Ave., through May
21. |
