Art Review: Donato Damiano at Gallerie Luz

I’m starting a new feature. I’m going to be doing some arts reporting for WATS — Where are the shows? – a new Montreal-based website that is looking to provide information on upcoming arts and entertainment events. I’ll be announcing vernissages and reviewing local exhibits. If you know of any gallery openings and would like to have the information posted, please contact me.

This Saturday, January 19 (2 – 5 PM), join artist Donato Damiano at Gallerie Luz for a vernissage showcasing his latest work. Gallerie Luz is located at 372 Ste-Catherine Ouest, Montréal, QC, H3B 1A2.

“Body and Souls” is a series of paintings that examines the human figure, particularly that of one single individual, a man. Damiano’s purpose in creating the series was to explore themes of manhood, trauma, introspection and anxiety. His figures represent his understanding of “being a man today.” He does this by reflecting on a history that is both deeply private and yet universal: The personal is political here, but the politics, for the moment anyway, are left up to us. There is much to consider here.

Damiano’s colour palate is drawn from the earth: his figures are rendered in robust shades of clay and set against dark backgrounds. His figures at times stare out at us; in other moments, they engage in gazes both private and self-revelatory. He recreates a sense of intimacy that is sensual and stirring, disturbing and inviting: it’s the perfect combination for exploring those private themes of eroticism and play.

And we all recognize these moments. They are familiar and strange: familiar to our own loci, but strange when glimpsed from a distance.

Damiano cites his sources as Caravaggio, Masaccio and Lucien Freud. His plans are to continue exploring themes of womanhood and masculinity, to continue with the series, to continue in his attempts to “elucidate the self.”

More about Lucien Freud: http://modernartists.blogspot.ca/2012/09/lucien-freud-bohemian-monk-and-his.html

This series is representational; the artist has used sketches from life as well as photographs to journey through myriad images representing the self. In that sense, these are deeply autobiographical renderings, renderings that ask us to consider what it means to be ourselves.

Donato Damiano lives and works in Montreal. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Concordia University in 1996 and has taken part in several solo and group exhibitions in galleries and other venues in Montreal. His work is represented in numerous private collections.