Villalongo, yeah, I'll go!!!!

Life is just backwards at times you know? You ask what creates the evil in people and their thinking? I really believe that patience and persistency is key along with prayer. I am also inpatient at times, though. When life is bigger than you it has to be worked out daily, spiritually and not carnally. These times we truly feel lost and discouraged in our social man, you know?

O.K., enough about personal psychological battles.
Question: Will the Art world think of me a hypocrite if I love and promote an artist who does works that are as mythological, cut out images and worthy (artisticlly) as Kara Walker? and be critical of her content?
Well call a spade when you see one.
I am floored to meet and explore the paintings of William Villalongo.




Villalongo offers wry commentary on the state of race relations in America with flat, large painting/collages full of hard-edged shapes intertwined and influenced by baroque paintings. He paints in layers of acrylic over black velvet and adds crowds of putti, cut out of paper, and laid on the surface. The colors are beautiful, rich, and restful, making the intense compositions possible to look at. These are visual tour de forces that look like hard-edge acrylic designs until you look closer. He also makes cut-out line drawings on black velvet paper with similar subject matter.

In "Love Before the Colonization of Mars," putti and aliens -- all dropped down from outer space to a gorgeous jungly environment-- have an orgy, and in "Dirty Diana and the Beast with 40 Eyes" (right), quoting from William Bouguereau's "Nymphs and Satyr," Villalongo shows Cupid (himself?) being dragged by sexy ladies to an uncertain fate as putti lurk beneath the greenery or get chewed up by the 40-eyed pink beast in the right hand corner. These images show a world without rules, where playfulness and danger are love partners.
(provided by http://www.fallonandrosof.com/2004/08/politics-of-different-color.html)

William Villalongo will grace us at The Franklin Art Works in two weeks. I am excited because this s the same place where I met Kehinde Wiley two years ago and its only 4 blocks from my house. Hope to see the hard core art fork in their Sundays best.