Underdonk

press release

Underdonk Presents:

“Mars & Satyr”

September 14-October 14, 2018
Opening reception: Friday, September 14, 7-10 pm

Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A.)
Gil Riley
Rob Ventura

Curated by Nicholas Cueva

The world is a constant unfolding of patterns and space, each moment determined by the former. Each point buttressed between other point. Every change is the result of previous states, and even in revolution the fibers of what came before make the new latticework.

“Mars & Satyr” is a showing of the formalist reactions to reality of three artists, Rob Ventura, Gil Riley and Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A.).

What do we say of an artist, when their practice is a construction, a reaction to the chaos of the world? When geometries becomes a substitute for a self-therapy. Remake the self. Remake the world. Is the artist a microcosm of the world?

The trick, William Potter, is not minding that it hurts.

The artist Jose Alvarez (D.O.P.A.) fled Venezuela decades ago to find acceptance in his sexuality in New York City. His old life and world were dangerous to who he was, and in New York he found love and acceptance. But after a while, it fell apart, as he was here illegally. Luckily for him, many here loved him and petitioned to keep him here in the U.S. From this fertile soil of loss and love, his art career grew and grew.

Nothing is true. Everything is permitted. Everything has consequences.

From this love, he was reborn. It was from these moments he made contact with eternity and it is from this place his work finds it’s magic. His beliefs are complex, and in direct contradiction with a rather skeptical community in which he inhabits.

Truly, for some nothing is written unless THEY write it.

Gil Riley’s journey, though less punctuated, contains similar moments of transformation and transgression, though it is far from over. Initially following in her father’s footprints, she broke through the mundane life as she discovered herself. The work reflects the larger mythos she is discovering and writing, in order to make sense of who she is and what this “bitch-of-a-world” has presented to her. Her spiritual practice is the unraveling of ideas, examined and splayed open like a dissected frog.

Big things have small beginnings, sir.

This mythos is far from perfect, and from its chaos, like from a bad dream, some demons are born. It has also lead to freedom and beauty. To remake the world, we will make mistakes and possibly unleash larger echos of our prior trauma.

Our only hope is honesty.

Lastly we have Rob Ventura. A “neutral” center point in this dialog. The claim of pure neutrality, which itself betrays philosophies refined and reflected through feigned conformity, comes from a definition from the norm of society. Rob, a consumer meme culture as cultural maker, attempting to redefine the self through the actions of art making, kept at arms length from the self. The hopeless romantic, disguised as a stoic.

Indeed, you do not seem a romantic man.

Between them all is a harmony of forms and colors, each of them listening to a harmonic in the world and trying to describe it as best they can, as the fabric of reality unfolds itself. These gestures hint and the sinew of the cosmos, our collective attempt at grasping for the future.

One cannot want what one wants.

We are all put in positions where all we can do is remain silent, and hope that some sense will come. In the face of the gods, we must make our own agency, make our own world. This is usually referred to as some satanic act, but it is truly a human endeavor.

The best of them won’t come for money; they’ll come for me.

-Nicholas Cueva (9.14.2018)

Underdonk
1329 Willoughby Ave.
Brooklyn, NY
11237