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Guatemalan artist Luis Gonzalez Palma constructs elaborate dream scenes, awash in an ethereal medium of memory and myth, in order to engage his audience on a subconscious level. While the silent characters in these tableaux evoke a sense of individuality and selfhood, their surroundings exist in the realm of the nonspecific, a place of mystery and memory. Gonzalez Palma’s luminous works seek no less than to portray the common poetry of humanity.
"In the vast majority of my photos the predominant color is sepia, symbolically representing a particular attachment to an irretrievable past. I think in this way I am giving specific weight to visual experiences distant in time. I am deeply interested in how images are articulated in our minds, as what we call reality. My works are an interpretation of that reality, a reality full of stories, memories, crossed paths... They are remnants, leftover from a fragmented world of dreams." --Luis Gonzalez Palma
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Phoenix-based painter Rachel Bess recruits stunning and unconventional models to represent heroines of the natural world in her works. Pierced punk moon goddesses and gothic solstice sylphs are portrayed in exquisite detail on panels that masterfully convey the artist’s precise formal skill and unconventional imagination.
"I like to imagine alternate myths to explain whatever natural phenomena I’m marveling at. These characters are the superheroes of nature, they provide and they take away, they are the icons of a parallel universe…This is kind of like illustrating a book before it's been written; some day I'll write it all down and the images of these paintings will serve as guideposts." —Rachel Bess
Top (left to right):
Luis Gonzalez Palma
Joven Alado, 2011, hand painted photograph on Hahnemuhle watercolor paper, 20" x 20", edition of 7
Escena 10, Lottery 3, 2011, hand painted photo paper, 35.4" x 35.4", edition of 7
Perdida en su Pensamiento, 2011, hand painted photograph on Hahnemuhle watercolor paper, 20" x 20", edition of 7
Bottom (left to right):
Rachel Bess
All the Decisions are Made in a Room with No Windows and Only One Bulb to Light Your Fate, 2011, oil on panel,
14" x 9.5" painting (20.25" x 15.75" framed)
Deja Vu and the Homemade Flux Capacitor, 2011, oil on panel, 11" x 12" painting (17.25" x 18.25" framed)
Pouring Springs, 2011, oil on panel, 7" x 5" painting (13.25" x 11.25" framed)
