"With an
apple, I want to surprise Paris", Paul Cezanne had said." With a
mango, I want to surprise Santo Domingo", Enriquillo Rodriguez Amiama
could have said, a Dominican painter. Like the great master of French
postimpressionism, he has selected a fruit, a sign and a symbol, to evoke
his land, his climate, his nature.
Solitary, more often in pairs, exceptionally in trios, the mango imposes
its seduction, and really surprises, within and outside Santo Domingo, as
is the case of his exhibition at the Gallery of the Inter American
Development Bank in Washington, D.C.
Enriquillo, as his friends call him-and his artistic name, by the way-also
paints other themes and motives: portraits, landscapes, real-imaginary
compositions. Nevertheless, the mango, a "pictorial obsession"
of several years, has enabled him to synthesize all these subjects. He
draws its portrait. He places it in a landscape environment. He turns it
into the axis of different compositions, alternating reality and
imagination. This versatility not only prevents reiteration, but also
makes us wait... for the successive adventures of the
fruit," contemplating" the surroundings and illuminating the
canvas.
We spontaneously personalize the mango... We perceive it as if it were
animated. Enriquillo Rodriguez Amiama, just like other artist of his
country, does not paint "dead nature"- the French "nature
morte"- and very rarely "bodegones" in the Spanish style,
at least if one thinks of the smoke and semidarkness of old kitchens. His
small and tender ovals rather suggest Anglo-Saxon "still
life", scenes of a calm and silent life. We insist on the vital,
omnipresent aspect of the creatures of Caribbean nature. Although,
in certain paintings, a feeling of fragile equilibrium on the railing of a
balcony or a mysterious atmosphere of diurnal, and then, nocturnal
constellation, might break the tranquility and announce drama.
Curved, soft, brilliant, smooth, velvety, delicate, with varied tones, these
mangoes are much more than vegetal products, apart from the fact that they
are the result of well-learned and practiced skill. They possess a
particular sensitivity, hey exhale tenderness and stir up an air of
affection. To some, they are quite appetizing-by nature!- and sensual, and
when there are two of them, they insinuate the closeness of love. They
possess a metaphorical wealth, according to the visual poetry of their
interpretation.
On the other hand, this fruit is fresh, young, vigorous; it projects beauty
in its simplicity. Simplicity, we say, not humility, because they look
triumphant. And we would say even more: they enclose a kind of psychological
and sentimental biography of oneself, if not a self-portrait. Knowing the
artist, his rectitude, his generosity, his wife Maribel and the environment
they have built together, the connotation becomes almost unavoidable. We
are usually not over sentimental in our comments, but here, there exists a
correspondence between the artist and his work.
Around the mangoes, with a few, almost geometric or minimalist exceptions,
other motives intervene, which might attract the main optical
interest, and which demonstrate the author's professional qualities.
Carefully disposed and draped fabrics propose their ribbed rhythms, or a
satiny and -why not?- frothy texture. They also play with undiscovered
elements, with lyrical, biological, flashing abstractions, according to the
receptiveness of the spectator. And, then, the landscapes appear,
generally in
lengthy formats, both interior and exterior, born from the vision of the
workshop, from observation of adjoining places, or from the magic-oneiric
image. And ,all this, with unusual respect-at least, in a member of that
generation-for composition, perspective, classical treatment, and with an
unfailingly luminous palette...because he is a Dominican artist!
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"America, Land of
Passions" 1993
Collection of Genao Family Sto. Dgo.
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