I can be a sucker for cheap thrills. I must be careful, knowing that I may later have second thoughts. And I hate that feeling.
I don't want to mistrust my reactions. Yet I've come across two shows that make me wary.
Caution No. 1: Raffael Iglesias at Peak Gallery.
There's a good chance Iglesias, an El Salvador-born Toronto painter, will become an art star. He's got all that it takes: a sizzling palette, aggressive attitude, an inborn commercial sense – he's worked as a commercial billboard spray-painter – and an entirely personal iconography that ranges from saucy Victoria's Secret catalogue figures to Latin American death fetish iconography.
"APOkALYPTICIOUS," his current show, has all that and more. Intellectual Property (2007) is an ambitious triptych that derives equally from graffiti-layered urban walls and early Renaissance altarpieces – an unlikely combo perhaps, although they have a lot in common in relaying complex narratives.
Apocalypticious (2007), a whorl of sugary pinks exploding out a blue backing, suggests the world's end will come when every Disney theme park explodes at once.
As compelling an ideas as this is, I find the work facilely decorative and lacking the intensity or rawness of early work.
Iglesias disagrees with me, not surprisingly. He points to "certain areas in the painting that are completely bare," he tells me.
The artist feels he's "able to tell a complete story now with the work, particularly now that the (pieces) are getting bigger." He adds: "I'm more confident of my sense of compositions and sense of colour."
about the exhibition
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