SHAUN BERKE & PATRICK V. MCGRATH MUÑIZ

November 7 – 30, 2014
Opening Reception: Friday, November 7th, 8-11 PM

 

SHAUN BERKE “SACROSANCT”

November 7 – 30, 2014. Opening Reception: Friday, November 7th, 8-11 PM

Painted with loose, deliberate brushstrokes, Shaun Berke’s women are intimate depictions of the collapse of an ideological system. His paintings exhibit knowledge of classical composition which he molds to fit the requirements of his own fascination. This reconstruction is informed with sensuality and an awareness of spiritual texts which manage to contemporize and re-cast Christian dogma.

Rather than angling his faces in such a way as to recall the works of Rembrandt, Berke often chooses a direct eye line between subject and viewer. The line of demarcation between brightly illuminated and shadowy areas seems to be the product of thrust rather than the genteel comfort of a planned sitting. By dramatizing the division of overwhelming clarity and brooding duskiness, Shaun impresses a diary of stolen moments into classic portraiture.

“It is about being human; about the desire for order, the untouchable; the id and conviction, clairvoyance and transgression; a metamorphosis; a reticent hunger.”

 

PATRICK V. MCGRATH MUÑIZ “SACRO CONSUMO”

November 7 – 30, 2014. Opening Reception: Friday, November 7th, 8-11 PM

Patrick V. McGrath Muñiz creates work that responds to consumer media culture and the historical use of Christian icons in colonial Latin America.

“The present work responds to our consumerist society and it’s indifference to the global ecological and social injustices. As a painter coming from a Roman Catholic background and growing up during the 1980’s and 90’s in the island of Puerto Rico, the oldest colony in the Western hemisphere, I’m inspired by pop culture icons, Christian Iconography and mythological imagery present in Art History, Tarot and Astrology. These sources provide a set of universal archetypes that allow me to re-interpret our current socio-economic and cultural conditions holistically, viewing world history as cyclical and interconnected from an archetypal perspective. In my work I adopt painting techniques on canvas and “retablos” reminiscent of Spanish colonial art. This enables me to emulate earlier indoctrination strategies and devices from the time of the conquest of the Americas in order to provide historical continuity and a link between the Colonial and the Neo-colonial narratives. Living in an information age and Inspired by art history I recreate intimate 2-D theater stages where I appropriate, recontextualize and orchestrate figures from history, religion, mythology and pop culture into anachronisms, parodies and satirical narratives that mirror my experience of the world today.”

 

Contact Gallery Director Matthew Gardocki for purchase info:
info@laluzdejesus.com  (323)666-7667