Spanish artist Paco Pomet's new series of paintings at the Monya Rowe Gallery reference vintage photographs, however the artist has added quirky and funny twists to his images which "allow[s] each painting to oscillate between fiction and reality." Men's faces have been oddly contorted to look like comical masks in El Becario and An Invitation; hunters' heads have been replaced with cat heads in Fabula; people in a rowboat have Donald Duck-like beaks attached to their faces in Rehen (which translates to "hostage"); and a male soldier is shown pantless and sporting high heels in Manual Transexual De Historia Contemporanea.
The title of Pomet's series, Montaigne's Nightmare, was inspired by "the French Renaissance thinker Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)." Considered the father of "Modern Skepticism," Montaigne's writing style combined "serious intellectual theory merged with casual anecdotes." Pomet adapted Montaigne's "democratic and humanistic approach to writing" for his paintings. While at first glance Pomet's paintings seem light and humorous, a longer look reveals darker undertones involving war, politics, capitalism and "themes of loneliness, existentialism, sexuality, struggle, and class." By inserting perverse and surreal touches, Pomet cleverly lures viewers into his paintings and then confronts them with uneasy subtext. Learn more at Monyarowegallery.com and at the artist's website Pacopomet.wordpress.com. Through November 6th.
An Invitation, 2010
Transporting Knowledge, 2010
El Becario, 2010
Manual Transexual De Historia Contemporanea, 2010
Fabula, 2010
Valentine's, 2010
Lieutenant David, 2010
Rehen, 2010
Sizes I-IV, 2010
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