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  Tamara Gonzales
Press Release
  SEED
December 2, 2004 to January 8, 2005
Opening Reception: Thursday, December 2, 2004 6 - 8 pm


Gallery hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 am - 6 pm. Please call for holiday hours
Contact Rachelle Rae House for further information or go to www.cherylpelavin.com

Cheryl Pelavin Fine Arts is proud to announce our 2nd solo exhibition with Tamara Gonzales. This exhibition contains a variety of works from the past 3 years, but a central theme revolves around a series of white paintings. Ms Gonzales has written a statement with regard to these works, which we feel is in the spirit of her show and is its own best description.

"These paintings started with a large blue dot. Later smaller dots began to appear around the circumference of the large dot. They multiplied. The large dots grew scales or petals. At various times they became planets, suns, amoebas, flowers, snakeskin, and even eggs-sunny side up. On white grounds they floated. White like bleached bones. They asked for eyes. I added pupils. We looked at each other. It was summer and I gardened. Everything seemed very alive. What if plants could speak? While war was being waged I sat dotting paintings, all those souls, dot… dot… dot... This work seemed so pretty and so white-then I remembered that widows wear white in Varanasi. The dots began to have wings. One looked to be flying above a pool of metal. Two comforted each other. One reminded me of a poster I saw often as a child. It read "War is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things". One night in August I caught Donovan at Joe's Pub. I left remembering that plants can talk. In America would people really rather die free? It was looking more and more like they would rather die full. I started seeing faces in the large dots. I painted them in and then painted them out.

Seeds are potential. They are plants ready to leave home. They are journeyers from a dying flower, fruit, or pod. They are ready to be dispersed, laid in soil, given warmth. They carry the genetic make up of their parent, like an egg. I considered calling this show Spawn. Is it possible some fastidious fish might carefully arrange his or her eggs in a circular pattern for aesthetic reasons?

The whole group really started because of Joan Miró. I remembered seeing a painting in Madrid with a large blue circle in it. It was one of my favorites. Later I poured blue enamel paint onto a canvas and watched it spread out slowly forming a wonky circle. When I began writing this statement I went to find the name of the painting I had seen. I searched through three books on Miró. It wasn't there. The Blue paintings, which I was sure the work had come from, were in fact blue but had red and black circles on them. The Smile of the Star to the Twin Tree of the Plain did yield a blue spot but a gauzy one. Could that be it? No, I knew I had never seen this painting and besides it was in Paris not Madrid. I considered quoting it anyway just so I wouldn't have to admit to myself that I was wrong about Miró's blue spot painting but felt it would be cheating. It is a funny moment when you realize how thoroughly your mind can conjure. I would have bet money on finding that piece of art. Still, to me, the whole group of work started with a blue circle painting that Joan Miró made."


Tamara Gonzales
INSTALLATION

March 8, 2001–April 28, 2001.




Tamara Gonzales' environments create joy using a combination of unlikely materials, festival imagery and decoration, plus her own artistic creation.

Panna translates to jewel.
Panna 3: I had Trouble in Getting to Solla Sollew, is a mixed media installation exploring a quest for utopia. Influenced by East Asian and Mexican decorative vernacular, Panna 3 is a place to explore the "other," or out of the ordinary experience, culturally provided by the party, festival, or special occasion.



Several specific inspirational elements are woven into this installation:

Dr. Seuss' book I had Trouble Getting to Solla Sollew is referred to in a series of series playful paintings. The Doctor's main character mistakenly leaves home for a supposed Utopia, and the artist documents the drama along the way. Many of the paintings feature the artist's expertise with cake decoration.

The East Village is home to two tiny Indian Restaurants, both favorite places for the artist, so densely and exuberantly decorated the settings become jewels themselves, befitting their names Panna and Panna 2.

On both the paintings on canvas and on a collection of large figurative vinyl balloons, faces are inspired by the Gede, the spirits of the dead, who have the ability to heal and redefine painful situations even finding death worth a good laugh. These faces are painted in the style of the Mexican Day of the Dead, which also mischievously mocks and puns death. The artist likens these to our own culture's yellow smiley face that insists "don't worry, be happy".

Ms Gonzales has also created a series of monotypes with Pelavin Editions for this exhibition. She showed with Cheryl Pelavin Fine Art in the summer of 2000 as part of a two person exhibition with Linda Daniels called: a few of my favorite things.