193 is, oddly enough, street slang describing the male gender. 193 is the three male painters banded under this generalized colloquialism, the better to allow their divergent foci tolerant leeway side by side with one another. 193 shows paintings which focus gently on the socio-contemporary, but remain as individuated and idiosyncratic as their makers.
Dennis Gonzales presents large, magazine sourced portraits, hovering between caricature and stereotype, harboring some closeted conflict, some covert quirk of identity. A hint at ambivalent sexuality is let on in his ‘10′, while the lurkings of a repressed lechery float innocently enough as harmless god fish in his ‘Sweetest Taste of Sin’. Tence Ruiz pursues his Kotillion theme, with portraits of decadents surplus and chic excess, pushed to an extreme as decrepit kotillion gowns. He also juxtaposes filmic celebrity and sainthood as overlapping idolatries. Wesley Valenzuela layers graphics and graffiti modes to articulate intimidating portraits of power mongers. His hybrids are both human and animal, such as his warlike yet zealot eagle-head in ‘Beast of Pray’. His mutations partake of both the sub and super human, symptomatic of a terrain of brutalization suffusing the early 21st century.
The three painters all drink from the stream through which the societal flows, yet struggle to re-invent and augment their personal vocabularies.
Documentation
