Two “street artists” exhibit at Image Factory
They are two artists not particularly well known to most Belizeans, but the proprietors of the Image Factory believe that their work has something to say. Patrick Jones reports.
That cliché, penned years ago by Lucio Alcoser, sadly, continues to be a current practice in Belize. But the people at the Image Factory want to see a change in that attitude and a month long exhibition underway at the gallery is a step in that direction. These are the works of Ruben Miguel… and these, the brainchild of Michael Gordon.
Gilvano Swasey, Manager, The Image Factory
“These guys, they were struggling but they found some type of stuff that they could exchange for life in a sense and that shows where they are similar and they are not afraid to say that this is my style.”
According to Manager of the Image Factory, Gilvano Swasey, while putting the show together he decided to focus on the artists’ common flare for turning scrap material into works of art.
Gilvano Swasey
“These two individuals were natural. In a sense they were flesh and they were in this concrete jungle, the city, where they, whatever they created was from material that they scavenged from the city. Like Mr. Miguel, he had wooden posts that he found in the junk yard. Mike use cardboard boxes that were disregarded by the Indians who had stores on the streets, and so forth. So these guys were brave in a sense, being lions, brave to come out.”
But while one of these brave lions of the Zinc Forest has since departed this world, his works continue to be an inspiration for art lovers twenty years after the passing of Ruben Alexander Miguel in 1978.
Gilvano Swasey
“Our main goal is promotion and education. To show that not just because other Belizean artists, not because we don’t paint boats, and we don’t paint bridges and birds and so forth, that doesn’t mean it’s not art and it doesn’t mean it can’t be seated in the home or in the museums also. We’re trying to show that these guys, especially Mr. Miguel who didn’t get any recognition in his life time, well he died over twenty years ago and nobody knew about him and its been very hard for us to get information about him and we’re trying to show these people and trying to give these artists respect too. It’s a sad thing that most artists become popular after they are dead so were trying to change that in society so people respect you while you’re living.”
And one artist that is very much alive and in dire need of some measure of respect is Michael Gordon. While his work tends to lack the structure and depth we’re accustomed to seeing from other artists, Swasey says at least Gordon’s pieces are original.
Gilvano Swasey
“A lot of people look at this stuff and they say, it’s childish, it’s not really art, it’s very aggressive, meaning it’s dead trees and birds flying, looking like vultures. And people say oh, that’s too sad to be art and looking at Mr. Miguel’s stuff, in his time, and even today, it looks very primitive, a lot of people say, oh you need more detail, oh you want to see pretty boats, and want to see tourists stuff, in a sense. But these guys were brave enough to come out and say okay this is my art and I don’t have to paint pretty pictures like everyone else.”
While he prefers to make his own unique mark in the world of art, Gordon’s work has seen dramatic changes since his exhibition. For instance, he’s added brighter colors and is even trying his hand at wood carving.
Gilvano Swasey
“Michael Gordon, talking to him, I have realized that he is not crazy like everybody thinks he is or everybody would say he is. His stuff makes a lot of sense. He speaks mostly like in parables, he will tell you one thing and it’s up to you. If you’re sharp enough you will get it or if you pay enough attention to it you will understand what he’s saying.”
Michael Gordon, Artist
“People would be around and try to let it be a little bit difficult for you when you have it a little bit difficult for yourself.”
While his ideas don’t always hit you squarely between the eyes, at least they’re from the heart, and Swasey says it’s this aspect of the artists’ way of reading the world around him that the public needs to appreciate. Take, for example, his recent experiment with painting of the male body from the neck down.
Gilvano Swasey
“So I asked Mike to try to see if he was just a pervert or something and why he did this thing and he gave me an answer and it made so much sense. And I said, “Mike, why did you paint the man without a head and just from the chest down?” And he told me that some men, they measure their intelligence, not by the size of their brain, but by the size of that, and it was like it is true. It is true, right?”
While the true measure of the contribution that Ruben Miguel made to the art of wood sculpting may have followed him to the grave, it is well within our control to let artists like Michael Gordon and others who are still with us, know that their work is appreciated. In short: “no wait till the man – or woman – dead, fu tell ah ih good.” Patrick Jones, for News Five.
The exhibition features over forty paintings and sculptures by Gordon and some ninety sculptures of wood by Miguel. While Miguel’s pieces are on loan from private collections and are not for sale, the opposite is true for Gordon’s paintings. The curtain comes down on the show April twenty fifth.
