Mirza Jahic
7-22-2003
Humi
16
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2406
It is amazing how
one can be touched and influenced just by going to a museum and observing
different artworks by random artists and their perspective of the world and
their perspective of life itself. I decided to visit the San Jose Museum of Art
on the 11th of July, which was a Friday afternoon with the desire to
be enlightened by art being that I have never visited an Art museum before. The
name of the exhibit that fascinated me the most and that I decided to write
about is Tino Rodriguez’s “The Darkening Garden: Tino Rodriguez” also known as
“El Jardín al Anochecer”. Tino was born and raised in Guadalajara, Mexico where
the art of the Catholic Churches captivated his attention forever. The
particular piece that I will be writing about is called “Erase una Vez (Once
Upon a Time)” and was painted in 1997 by Tino Rodriguez. The approximate size
of this specific piece of art is 6 x 6 inches with oil and rhinestones on wood.
I chose to talk about Tino Rodriguez’s “Erase una Vez” for a number
of reasons. As I walked into Tino Rodriguez’s gallery I was first mystified by
that particular painting and as to why a grown man would wear a veil on top of
his head (curiosity is a curse!!!). This in return attracted me to it and I had
to examine it and also find an answer to it. I first came up with numerous
theories as to what Tino was trying to say with the painting but none of it really
made sense until I noticed two particular things.
First, I was unaware that Tino Rodriguez was a gay man and that it
must have been a real struggle to grow up in a Mexican family of six boys and
three girls and truly express his thoughts and feelings towards the society.
This, to me signified that Tino Rodriguez is not ashamed but rather proud and
that this particular painting, including many of his other pieces of art, were
all strong, self-reflection papers with Tino’s imagination and experiences acting
upon it hand in hand.
Second, I noticed the name and the short description of the
painting. It was “Once upon a time”. This struck me extremely hard and I was
captivated by it automatically. I came to a conclusion about the painting and I
put it in a sentence that I had to write down as I was observing the piece of
art. I wrote down the following; the innocence and ignorance of the past is a
gift, a blessing that one loses over time. This applies to Tino’s painting in a
great way and I will try and explain in the following paragraph.
Tino as a kid did not have to deal with society as he does today.
Everything around him did not have an impact on him; rather it sort of passed
him by without affecting him as it does the majority of young kids throughout
the world. This painting was speaking to me and giving me all sorts of
miscellaneous ideas. I asked myself if having knowledge is a blessing or a
curse. The same idea I think applies to Tino when he was painting “Erase una
Vez”. He portrayed himself as an innocent boy, without knowledge of the wild,
mysterious world, thinking to himself that being who you are is good, when in
reality, it can be quiet bad.
Besides the fact that this painting spoke to me in a way that no
other painting really has, another great strength of it is Tino’s fanciful
imagination and colors that he uses throughout his paintings. “Erase una Vez”
is simple, yet filled with dreams and real issues that have to do with human
sexuality and the sexual suffering that he went trough. He states that “I am
fascinated by the complexity of human sexuality, transformation, longing and
transgression” which in return tells me that being ignorant is being innocent
and that being innocent is a blessing.
The smooth strokes of his paintings and the way he brings out
certain parts of himself by darkening some of the portions of his self-portrait
such as the cheeks, the forehead, the neck and the background is truly a gift
and also a reason as to why I was fascinated by “Erase una Vez”. The way that his
colors re-act with his self-portraits are absolutely amazing and by this I mean
that it does not matter if there is sadness, suffering, pain, happiness, bliss
or anything of that extent, Tino continues to use brilliant and extreme color
in his paintings to show the inner beauty of it all. His strength is the
mystification and it is protected by his use of colors. The way that he painted
his self-portrait is amazing because as I looked at it, the eyes captivated me
and I could see the sorrow because of the rejection. It’s as if he was really
looking at me and telling me his story of pain and suffering.
Another reason why Tino’s art in general attracts me is because he
combines the dream world and the illusion with the reality and the suffering
from within. Most of his paintings, exactly like “Erase una Vez” are painted in
a way where they do not scare the observer, but rather softly present the cold
fact of reality, sort of a watered-down version of a reality check. Needless to
say, the cold facts of the world and reality in general are interpreted by Tino
and painted in an imaginary world asking “what if or why not”? “Erase una Vez” means “Once Upon a Time”
which can only mean that Tino is depressed about the fact that the world is not
how he expected it to be. It is cruel and disturbing but the peace can be found
when fighting fears with imagination and/or dreams. Only his eyes can tell the
suffering and the pain that he had to grow up with; the rejection, the
humiliation, and the fears that he had to conquer.
I came to a few conclusions regarding the interpretation of Tino
Rodriguez’s “Erase una Vez” and about his style in general. The portrait of
himself in a veil symbolizes the innocence of a kid. There is no guilt, no
shame, and no jealousy, absolutely nothing is bothering a young heart or mind.
This painting truly struck a soft spot with me because if one really thinks
about the point that Tino is trying to make about a child’s perspective of the
world and the cruel intentions of the society and the adult that has to live
and interact within it, one is truly cursed for eternity. Tino is simply using
his imagination to portray a world of innocence in his dream world. This in
return brings me to a sentence that I thought of as I was observing this innocent
painting, in a low lit room that has no significance in a world full of other
fatal attractions. I thought to myself, being ignorant is being innocent and
being innocent is a being blessed. But then I asked myself, what is being
blessed? Is it to be enlightened or just to be plain happy? Does it really even
matter in a world full of pain and suffering? The answer lies in the beginning
of it all, the only true blessing that one ever owns, the past.
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