Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Note on Raul Gonzalez at Caroline Collective

by Robert Boyd

I didn't like all the pieces by Raul Gonzalez that I saw at the Caroline Collective last Saturday--his approach seems too all over the place. But one benefit from having such an unfocused approach is that maybe, just maybe, some of your pieces will hit a sweet spot. That's how I feel about a lot of this work.

 

Raul Gonzalez, Work Ahead, acrylic and marker on canvas, 2009

His paintings and drawings show the world seen from the street--specifically the world of work. They combine graphic elements with recognizable illustration.In Work Ahead, the quoted graphic (the warning sign) dominates, but within the sign are other graphic elements and drawing.


Raul Gonzalez, Exit Only, acrylic, ink, tape and marker on masonite, 2010

Exit Only also combined illustrative elements within a freeway sign graphic.


Raul Gonzalez, Construction Barrel, acrylic, ink and marker on canvas, 2010 

A couple of paintings use intense "safety orange" as their primary element. Having a flat color underpainting, then leaving large swathes of the canvas unpainted (except for the underpainting) makes the image seem to float. Here, the color is highly symbolic--it acts as a warning as well as a call to attention. It speaks to our experience of driving in the streets of a dynamic, changing city, where repairs and new cosntruction are always happening. That speaks to Houston, but really, I think almost anyone who lives in a big city can relate to these kinds of images. They speak to modern urban life in the age of the automobile.


Raul Gonzalez, More Work Ahead, in and spray paint on floor laminate, 2010 

My favorite work in the show is the painting More Work Ahead. By doing a bit of landscape drawing on the left then a small drawing of a traffic barrel in the bottom right, Gonzalez effectively depicts the feeling of a wide boulevard--a vast treeless expanse of concrete--without drawing it. We roll over these roads, but aside from our rapid passing, many of them are non-spaces, voids, heat islands that repel human life. Life occurs on the edges of these concrete deserts.


Raul Gonzalez, More Work Ahead detail, in and spray paint on floor laminate, 2010


Raul Gonzalez, More Work Ahead detail, in and spray paint on floor laminate, 2010 

In some ways, these pieces remind me of certain early modernist American paintings--the stylized depictions of modern urban America by Charles Demuth, Joseph Stella, Charles Sheeler and so on. It's a good lineage to have.

The show is only up through June 24, so rush over before it closes.


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