Daniel Lezama
The first impression upon encountering Daniel Lezama's large canvases -some of which are veritable "salon machines" where the human figure is close to life size- is a clear-cut formal reference to pictorial tradition, from Great Masters to Mexican Nationalist Nineteenth Century painters. The second impression immediately snaps the audience back to its own time and place: the events portrayed are current, the dramatic fiction is narrated in everyday scenarios. The third impression is far more complex: we are confronted by a polisemic staging that opens the way to multiple levels of interpretation and social and artistic reference.
A unique combination of virtuoso painterly technique, disregard for formalism, and the decisive appropiation of subversive theme and discourse casts Daniel Lezama into something of an exception in Mexico's vibrant visual art scene, where on one hand the late-modern painterly tradition frowns upon direct reference to local subject matter, and on the other, the cutting-edge ?lite revels in globalized aesthetics. His recent success has invited many critics and curators to reassess standing clich?s on the international positioning of Mexican painting, and has challenged the severe self-imposed limitations of the local painters' fraternity. From the start of his professional career in 1995, while still a student at the National Visual Arts School, Lezama has traveled off the beaten path, developing a painterly discourse that directly assumes its contemporary standing and places itself squarely in the sights of the international art distribution mainstream.
The exhilarated response of audiences is partly the result of the indisputable emotional impact of his work; Lezama has undertaken the task of unmasking a form of reality that has been mediated and prettified by the sophisticated devices of social representation, and puts a passionate visual memory to work by inventing images: the realism that defines his paintings has no frame of direct or mediated reference whatsoever.
Dilapidated dwellings, dusty slums, vacant lots with panoramic views, as well as a host of characters, objects, and gestures coalesce into the great imaginary theatre of human marginality and necessity where the painter incessantly reformulates -from a hands-down, ground-level vantage point, as it where- the symbolic images and emblems of both his personal and communitary identity. The characters of his paintings embody carnality, indifference, tenderness or fatalism in a manner bespeaking heresy to the correctness of contemporary sensibility, unveiling the surface of a dark, heavy-breathing, ironic mirror that stares down the political and cultural infrastructure that shelters us from the gross realities of life.
On occasion, his subject matter focuses on specific places or themes; for his most recent show in the OMR Gallery, the artist surprised audiences by exposing the foundational episodes of the Mexico City Valley landscape to the instinctive flow of the visual imaginary, and proposing a subjective re-edition
of the communitary historical legacy of the megalopolis. Under the ambiguous and alluring guise of family dramas or allegorical representations, his large paintings constitute an uncensored file of the sites and artistic icons that have witnessed the confrontation of the Mexican people with its identity.
Born in 1968 to Mexican-American parents, Daniel Lezama is a casual dresser and speaks fluently; on first take, his easygoing demeanor would appear to contradict the viscerality of his work. He has recently joined OMR Gallery, the Mexico-City based post-conceptual art stronghold, that has plans to show his work in a number of major art fairs this year, and is preparing a fall solo show in Brooklyn's cutting-edge Roebling Hall as well. A methodic worker, he is used to dividing his time between day- light painting in his studio, located in an abandoned building in downtown Mexico City, and extensive promotion and public relations efforts. "I am surprised at how non-specialized audiences are often capable of approaching my work with more ease and immediacy that the art crowd", he notes, "maybe we should learn again to risk getting involved in a story, to stop and take the time a painting requires, to see it with other eyes, with heart and head at once".
May 2002.
The first impression upon encountering Daniel Lezama's large canvases -some of which are veritable "salon machines" where the human figure is close to life size- is a clear-cut formal reference to pictorial tradition, from Great Masters to Mexican Nationalist Nineteenth Century painters. The second impression immediately snaps the audience back to its own time and place: the events portrayed are current, the dramatic fiction is narrated in everyday scenarios. The third impression is far more complex: we are confronted by a polisemic staging that opens the way to multiple levels of interpretation and social and artistic reference.
A unique combination of virtuoso painterly technique, disregard for formalism, and the decisive appropiation of subversive theme and discourse casts Daniel Lezama into something of an exception in Mexico's vibrant visual art scene, where on one hand the late-modern painterly tradition frowns upon direct reference to local subject matter, and on the other, the cutting-edge ?lite revels in globalized aesthetics. His recent success has invited many critics and curators to reassess standing clich?s on the international positioning of Mexican painting, and has challenged the severe self-imposed limitations of the local painters' fraternity. From the start of his professional career in 1995, while still a student at the National Visual Arts School, Lezama has traveled off the beaten path, developing a painterly discourse that directly assumes its contemporary standing and places itself squarely in the sights of the international art distribution mainstream.
The exhilarated response of audiences is partly the result of the indisputable emotional impact of his work; Lezama has undertaken the task of unmasking a form of reality that has been mediated and prettified by the sophisticated devices of social representation, and puts a passionate visual memory to work by inventing images: the realism that defines his paintings has no frame of direct or mediated reference whatsoever.
Dilapidated dwellings, dusty slums, vacant lots with panoramic views, as well as a host of characters, objects, and gestures coalesce into the great imaginary theatre of human marginality and necessity where the painter incessantly reformulates -from a hands-down, ground-level vantage point, as it where- the symbolic images and emblems of both his personal and communitary identity. The characters of his paintings embody carnality, indifference, tenderness or fatalism in a manner bespeaking heresy to the correctness of contemporary sensibility, unveiling the surface of a dark, heavy-breathing, ironic mirror that stares down the political and cultural infrastructure that shelters us from the gross realities of life.
On occasion, his subject matter focuses on specific places or themes; for his most recent show in the OMR Gallery, the artist surprised audiences by exposing the foundational episodes of the Mexico City Valley landscape to the instinctive flow of the visual imaginary, and proposing a subjective re-edition
of the communitary historical legacy of the megalopolis. Under the ambiguous and alluring guise of family dramas or allegorical representations, his large paintings constitute an uncensored file of the sites and artistic icons that have witnessed the confrontation of the Mexican people with its identity.
Born in 1968 to Mexican-American parents, Daniel Lezama is a casual dresser and speaks fluently; on first take, his easygoing demeanor would appear to contradict the viscerality of his work. He has recently joined OMR Gallery, the Mexico-City based post-conceptual art stronghold, that has plans to show his work in a number of major art fairs this year, and is preparing a fall solo show in Brooklyn's cutting-edge Roebling Hall as well. A methodic worker, he is used to dividing his time between day- light painting in his studio, located in an abandoned building in downtown Mexico City, and extensive promotion and public relations efforts. "I am surprised at how non-specialized audiences are often capable of approaching my work with more ease and immediacy that the art crowd", he notes, "maybe we should learn again to risk getting involved in a story, to stop and take the time a painting requires, to see it with other eyes, with heart and head at once".
May 2002.
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