"There's
always been a common thread," explained Librado Romero describing
the links between his own paintings and the photographs of Thomas
Hudson Reeve, his friend and soul mate. From the first time that Reeve
visited Romero's studio several years ago, it was clear that he intuitively
grasped not only what the painter Romero was doing but what he was
striving for. "I knew right away that he got it."
In fact the individual experiences of the two have been quite distinct
and the techniques and tools they use to make the art they are showing
jointly at Gallery 49 differ greatly. While one paints, the other
stalks stark visions with a digital camera. But both are pursuing
similar tasks; seeking to reveal mysteries lying beyond commonplace
perspective and to expand on their own understanding of life and the
cosmos. Both are impressed by specters, whether they are the fluttering
of the white eyed ghostly pigeons that Reeve has captured or the shadowy
beasts that Romero has created to summon forth and illuminate wispy
memories of childhood, youth, growth, rapture, pain and friendship.
Of the two, Reeve is more scientific in his approach and vocabulary.
Daily he sets out prowling for shapes and hues, contrasts, symmetries
and spatial relationships that seemingly no one has taken notice of
before. He talks of fractal geography to describe his discovery and
portrayal of repetitive curves in tiny patches of ice and tar on a
tenement roof. Like the lunar robot sending back close ups from the
moon, he prowls our home planet with great intimacy, recording the
harmonies and dissonances of both nature and architecture. Sometimes
he zeroes in on the tiny, revealing amazing shapes and suggesting
the sub atomic particles whose supposition in quantum theory changed
our understanding of the physical world in the last century. At times
the effect he achieves is to make the most ordinary place look like
a National Geographic exploration of some remote and exotic setting.
But he also offers broader perceptions from a far greater vantage
point, establishing a new and awesome vista of the most familiar city
in all history.
Romero is more rooted in relativity than quantum mechanics, fascinated
by the interplay of time, space, gravity and in the fantasies in which
these forces conspire. His paintings arise from emotional ashes. They
are evocations and resurrections giving shape, weight and texture
to times and associations that have faded beyond sight and touch but
which remain as profound as they ever were, perhaps even more so.
For him there is always an inner world of dream and nightmare, of
love and fear, of demons and guiding spirits as well. These have to
be provoked and looked at from every possible angle, in the same way
that Reeve explores our increasingly accessible environment.
The common challenge they have set for themselves is to sense the
world -- whether of quarks or spirits -- and summon up the recently
unknowable or unthinkable and establish it in ways that will stimulate
thought, imagination and fantasy, of the viewers but also of the artists.
For further information please contact Monica A. Rotaru at 212.767.0855
or e-mail us at info@gallery49.com
