Emergency Call to Aristotle !!!  (2018-2019)

      The 'Emergency Call to Aristotle' series :   

In this exhibition, Don Diego calls us to explore the mystery of the relationship between philosophy and artistic representation. His creation revolves around deep topics such as fear, anxiety, and the unknown which are all the more prevalent in modern day societies.

'Echo of his impressions and sensibilities, his work sometimes reflects a critical eye. His intention is always to create a dialogue with the spectator.' 

-Sylvia Meillon (peer artist)

The most intriguing series of paintings focuses on characters and indefinite forms which will invite you to dive into this artistic journey and its thought-provoking inquiries of our most interesting times.

Don Diego finds inspiration from his photographs alongside models sculpted with modeling clay. This project is a continuity in the artist's career from exhibitions at le Centre culturel Pauline-Jullien de Trois-Rivières, la Maison des arts de Laval, le Centre culturel Simon Bolivar de Montréal, and exhibitions in Brossard and Longueuil.

Video shot of painting session

Short video of Don Diego at work and explaining his body of work. The POPOP Gallery hosted the exhibition in February 2019.

This series of paintings is inspired from my reading of Aristotle. The Philosopher is among other things popular for his art of classification. He was a pioneer in establishing a classification for animals. However, something seems to unsettle the Aristotelian system : the monstrous. Is this the name for a being that escapes any classification? According to Aristotle, the monster is a breaking to the finality : he still did not attain the form he needed to embody, he is incomplete.

The monster reflects to me the unsolvable dimension of reality. Yet, too quick to symbolize its sudden appearance, we are rushed to captivate it in the meshes of our categories. The monster is the disfigured face of a reality that is unbearable without our prefabricated classifications. Which is not a transitory state to a finality, but the sign of our existential incompleteness. The monster marks the limits of our classifications.

In my first painting, a man is urged to call Aristotle to seek help. Can we bear, to a stronger reason in our own house, the presence of monster without a name? Where does the need come to put a name upon a face? Isn't the first reflex before this sudden emergence of reality to appeal to a specialist, to a scientific or to a philosopher? Do we seek a comfort within an already elaborated knowledge, instead of singularly interrogating ourselves, before this lack of being?

A series of paintings are linked to this main painting. Hence smaller formats display several portraits of monsters. These portraits were painted from small sculptures made out of modeling clay, improvised by hand. Neutral and cold tones were mixed with red, blue and yellow to imitate the onset of a movement; the beginning of a metamorphosis: since it is always the same monster that transforms from a painting to the next, therefore escaping to our classifications.

In '' Untilted 1'' we can find the monster of the main painting. This time it is no longer the character of the painting who has to deal with the monster, but rather ourselves. It is our turn to question our classification system. And for those who might understand too quickly, beware; the monster has already taken another form in the next painting. Indeed, in ''Untilted 2'', we already assist to the first metamorphosis of the monster. This transformation should more or less evolve over twenty paintings.

The Thing cannot be described--there is no language for such abysms of shrieking and immemorial lunacy, such eldritch contradictions of all matter, force, and cosmic order.

H. P Lovecraft

VOF  

If you're interested in acquiring a painting, please contact me at:

Email - dondiegoart@gmail.com   /  Phone - 514-892-5070 ( Montreal, Quebec, Canada)