Tropes and Transgressions are artist D.B. Gonzaga’s introspections into mythology, pop culture, and the threads in between.

An educator, writer-critic, and practitioner in the field of Visual Arts, D.B. Gonzaga’s body of works are particularly influenced by folklore and mythology, and contemporary socio-politics. His insistence on the use of monochromes and black and white mediums are discourses on the advocacy to bring art closer to the public space. He works almost exclusively with ink, markers, pens, and paper as the accessibility, availability, and portability of these instruments allow the practice to fit seamlessly with the the pedestrian and proletarian routines that gobble the meatiest hours of the day. In terms of technique, D.B. Gonzaga blends the use of filigrees, solid black lines, and negative space to create complex compositions. Recently, he has transitioned to more archival mediums such as canvas and watercolor paper, yet still prefers the familiarity of the ink pen and the starkness and simplicity of the element of line to convey his message and themes.

 “Tropes and Transgressions” is D.B. Gonzaga’s practical transition from the fleeting medium of paper to the more robust surface of canvas. It is a culmination of nearly a decade of refining and defining a specific art style that best represents his aesthetics and his politics. But it is also a period of experimentation, expansion, and evolution. A body of work composed of more than twenty pieces conceived and created at a frenzied phase and space of less than a year, D.B. Gonzaga’s solo exhibit is the first of several shows of increasing complexity and intricacy in terms of both technique and discourse.

Musings on the featured art works

LOREWEAVERS’ ANANSE AND ATHENA

The themes and personas of “LOREWEAVERS’ ANANSE AND ATHENA” (full size: 48 x 36 inches; also featured in the header) are core elements in the art of D.B. Gonzaga. They represent different–and often opposing–forces of mythopoesis. They are spider-deities at the center of the web of mythmaking.

Ananse represents the spontaneous, visceral, and improvisational process through which stories are crafted. After all, he was able to win stories for humanity by resorting to his quick wit and wile. Athena is the logical, methodical, and deliberate process that lends meat and meaning to stories. She is sense, syntax, and structure. In D.B. Gonzaga’s composition, they are split, yet synergized. Ananse, plucks abstractions from his mind, and Athena weaves a thread from it.

Ananse and Athena sit at the center of the Pattern, a multiverse and metaverse of stories that are essentially variations of a theme. The Pattern manifests itself as both a web and a spread of tiles, representing the different ways we view and read alternate worlds and stories in our imagination.

COFRADIA DE LAS MANOS VS. THE SHADOW OF THE FOUNDING TITAN

“COFRADIA DE LAS MANOS VS. THE SHADOW OF THE FOUNDING TITAN“ (full size : 24 x 24 inches) is a visual essay on the raw energy that cascades through an annual religious piligrimage. Instead of highlighting the anatomy of a crowd, the piece relies on the visual metaphor of a sea of hands–fingers distorted, contorted, interlocked in a maddening embrace of both chaos and comfort. It is a procession viewed and experienced from within the dogpile, where a devotee sees only an endless apparition of hands pulling, pulling, grabbing at every tangible and intangible element of the spiritual frenzy and the implicitly sensual tension between nameless bodies. But in this madness, one finds a sense of community, recognizing the need to restrain the individual beast so that the hive can keep at bay the greater monster of chaos that threatens to devour the ritual whole. Viewed from a certain distance, the detail of individual hands transform into a rolling swarm and ocean of viscera and invertebra where the icon heaves, sways, surges, rolls, ptches, and yaws until it reaches sanctuary.

HEADSPACE SERIES

D.B.Gonzaga’s “Headspace” series is a playful nosedive into fancy and frenzy. Clockwise from top left are details from “Sararimania”, “Grandmama Jamma”, “Lou Tenant”, and “Gatekappa”.

“Sararimania” is D.B. Gonzaga’s take on the creeping creative madness and the irreversible avalanche of wakeful dreaming that gnaws at the carefully crafted schedule and routine of the working man who subconsciously desires to escape from the dread and dreariness of the work-life prison myth and into the chasm of childlike hopes and dreams long abandoned.

“Grandmama Jamma” is the artist’s essay on how folk traditions are inevitably co-opted, parodied, appropriated, and disrupted to fit into the narrative of modernity. It is a glance into how certain landmarks of traditions are displaced and replaced–where the primary feats that inform rituals and symbols are replaced with the convenience of currency and clout.

“Lou Tenant” is D.B. Gonzaga’s insight into how layers of fascist tendencies constantly intrude into our personal and social lives, where the shifting social and cultural landscapes draw us into the clownery of flags and false nations. From our obsession with the superhero motif down to our hero worship of the uniform and its pretensions of authority, we are simultaneously enablers and victims of hegemons and tyrants.

“Gatekappa” draws inspiration from the creature in Japanese folklore and combines its themes with it with a critique of so-called cultural gatekeepers. The kappa in folklore is often tolerated because its actions are deemed to be relatively harmless–comparable to the mischievous pranks of children. But the kappa exploits this facade and will often commit heinous acts of abuse and violence when it is not revered as a deity. Despite its pretensions of power, it is actually easy to repelw with mockery as its ego is incapable of handling irreverence.

(Acknowledgement: Musings on the featured artworks written by NRG, a former student and now an art collector herself.)

Selected art works: Details

© Copyright 2024 D.B Gonzaga. All rights reserved.

Artist’s contact information

D. B. Gonzaga can be reached through his Facebook page. CLICK HERE.