David Macaluso - 21st Century Painter

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Prototype

2008
36 x 24in
(91 x 61cm)
Acrylic on Canvas

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Thumbnails and Slideshow of Mindsnapper Series

Prototype is a preliminary work for Giant-Slayer. This image was derived from Donatello's statue of David. In the statue, David is carrying a sword, holding a rock, and standing in contrapposto over the head of the slain Goliath. In Prototype, David has been transformed essentially into an anonymous pictogram; and his posture (though not apparent here) has been foreshortened, as if viewed from below. The mountain on which stands this silhouette of David would otherwise be the head of Goliath. Here Goliath's undeveloped head is only hinted at by a textured, somewhat frenzied, application of paint. Prototype is a work concerned with fundamentals of form and meaning; which, having been stripped of its original features and context as "Donatello's David", attempts to reissue the visual narrative of David and Goliath for a contemporary audience, and reinvigorate an ancient story.

Read about Mindsnapper Series See Mindsnapper Series Main Gallery

Series: Mindsnapper: See Slideshow	>> Main Gallery

Series Overview Human Pictogram Light Artistic Considerations

Series Overview:

Mindsnapper Series is a group of paintings comprising a broad range of influences. The overarching theme is that human consciousness is both a progenitor and a product of local and global events; and that this "internal" and "external" force, respectively, are distinct vital systems of a single, universal organism. Mindsnapper reaches toward the prospect of an emerging civilization-mode rooted in this "universal" perception-- one largely powered by light-based energy. Here the concept of "illumination" is approached, both from a consciousness and a materials perspective.

Features:

Human Pictogram:

Perhaps the dominant feature of Mindsnapper is the human pictogram. Here it's used as a communications device not unlike it's more conventional, daily applications. But rather than for crosswalks, caution signs and bathrooms, or as a consumer product logo and child's plaything, Mindsnapper wields the human pictogram with the intention of a sword to deface familiar identities, disembowel traditional authority, disassemble outmoded paradigms, and dislodge the rigid thought-filters that fragment pure light. Through the elixir of the pictogram, Mindsnapper also takes the well-known object and/or the historical event and converts them into abstractions and concepts. Specifically, the human pictogram is used here to establish a sense of the fundamental, the elemental, the metaphysical. As a general symbol, it applies to all and none. When it applies to one, the pictogram de-individualizes. In so doing, it universalizes. As it reaches into the universal, there it finds an orb for a head. And by transmuting head into orb, the human pictogram inadvertently mingles a concept of mind with the halo of divinity. A kind of divinity that would apply to each and all.

Religious iconography such as the halo seems adopted from sun-worshiping cults and cultures, like the Egyptians perhaps most notably. The Egyptian hieroglyphs and paintings represent the sun-god by a "solar-disc", or circle, above the heads of deities. Many other cultures and religions from around the globe have used-- and still use-- solar iconography to suggest illumination and association with the sun. The Tibetan flag and the "crown" of The Statue of Liberty are but two examples of solar iconography in use today.

Mindsnapper's interest in the circle is broader than only the halo or illumination-symbol though. It includes other applications for it as well: as a representation of celestial spheres; a metaphor for "universality", as well as for natural cycles and for rotation; and as a symbol for (the concept of) perfection, both spiritual and material. And this "concept of perfection" is perhaps never more fully embodied than in the pristine wonderings of an infants' eyes.

Electromagnetic Radiation Spectrum, or, Light:

Another frequent motif in Mindsnapper Series is the wavelength band of the electromagnetic spectrum. This motif is utilized here for compound effect. Perhaps most obviously, it serves the "composition" of those works in which it appears. As an instrument of composition, the motif collaborates in the treatment of pictorial "space". (More about space, below.) The motif's appearance also becomes a method for thinking about color; for revising familiar perceptions of the visible, material world, and for thinking outside the box; and as an opportunity for Mindsnapper to self-reflect.

The "wavelength band" initiates an analysis of color not merely by contemplating the painter's pallet, but through understanding color as an aspect of light. Questions of color become topics of light. And as such: colors are specific wave frequencies inside the visible range of the electromagnetic radiation spectrum. And visible light is only a small portion of the spectrum, situated between infrared and ultraviolet light. From very very large to very very small waves, this spectrum spans the entire universe, and it is said to be infinite....

Indeed, at the gravitational core of Mindsnapper Series is the desire to burn through the seductive embrace of Maya, and to peer through the veil of the visible. The visible realm floats like an island on a bubble in a endless universal ocean, and ripples of electromagnetic waves extend beyond our sight, in every direction. The familiar three-dimensional world is measured against an infinitely grander scale of things. By reflecting on the boundaries of the visible realm, this work focuses on the invisible with equal or greater emphasis-- recognizing that perhaps the latter contains deeper realms, more intricate realities. (Perhaps fewer realms are deeper or realities more intricate than the function of perception itself.) Beckoning increase in the power of perception, Mindsnapper bares witness to existence with one eye open and one eye closed. Concordantly, as technological advancement progresses in wavelength-detection, farther vistas and new islands are emerging within the void of experience.

The mere detection of various radiation ... has transitioned into the harnessing of it as energy and information on a global level. This would encompass a vast array of natural and human-induced processes. In the purview of Mindsnapper, solar and light energy are of particular interest, for many reasons; not least of which is their effect on almost every aspect of present day life: environmental, economic, geopolitical, scientific, military, technological, bio-physiological, psycho-spiritual, cultural, etc, etc. For example, take an activity commonly seen as cultural, but which incorporates a number of the abovementioned catagories: the act of painting. How a painting harnesses radiation is by intentionally reflecting visible light-- which gets fragmented through media and conveyed as color and form-- to construct visual environments and experiences. In this regard, the painter acts essentially as a conductor of light, comporting information through optical channels into a viewer's mind-body system, with varying degrees of impact. So, the "wavelength band" motif, by evoking the subject of light-- its utilization and "value"-- means not only to reference "global" conditions. Mindsnapper also sets out on a path of self-discovery, pursuing questions of its own fundamental nature and purpose. Which appears to be its function as an antenna that receives and transmits radiant energy.

Artistic Considerations:

Artistic considerations in these paintings include: space and its sub-categories of perspective and scale, color treatment, form, line, etc., and compositional arrangements guided largely by geometry. Not to review every feature here, I will say a word about how the series explores space....

Space in a two-dimensional medium is paradoxical and the gradual deconstruction of imagery in art over the years has compounded the paradox. As if finally arriving at a logical conclusion, "abstraction" has revealed a pictorial space that is simultaneously flat and deep-- at once "on the surface", and, receded into eclectic, multi-directional depth. Mindsnapper commences from this deconstructionist paradigm, while restlessly defying its nihilistic rituals. Modulating between degrees of relative spatial flatness, this work (generally) organizes representational form into a construction of spatial awareness. Pictorial planes are configured through the "scaling" of forms-- predominantly. (Layering of color also is instrumental in building up a sense of dimension (see Antenna of the Band, and Occult Curtain.) Mindsnapper utilizes varying degrees of perspective as well, to thrust form, and space, upward-- out of a bottom-heavy foreground and away from the viewer. Where applicable, this approach to composition is informed by the triangle and-- by association-- the pyramid. The result can be described as an "apex schema."

July, 2008.
Brooklyn, NY

Mindsnapper Series Main Gallery