An easy give-and-take of figurative and abstract
presence creates a heterogeneous resolution in the
works ‘Sleeping Nude’ and ‘Logical
Conclusion,’ where a womanly figure lies recumbent.
The shapely figure is a free-floating image undefiled
by a formidable display of abstract elements whirling
about her.
I found the many abstract works
of Veneracion, many on view at the Galeria Duemila,
more dynamic in their unpredictability – in
terms of conception, composition and execution.
Perhaps these are the works executed outdoors. The
very titles and chromatic treatment betray the intensities
of space, the sky and the seasons. Connotative of
light, wind and weather are titles such as Red Zone,
Yellow Over Gray, Under the Blue Sky in Bright Sunlight,
Summer Solstice and Zazen at Noon.
What distinguishing characteristics unify these
works into a cohesive vision for the artist? The
works grow by an accretion of spatial and surface
attacks. Veneracion has a predilection for dividing
space into geometric areas. Some of the works are
done in diptychs and triptychs. There are freely
deployed squares and rectangles that turn into color-bearing
vessels. But the real ballast of Veneracion’s
art would be the imaginative methods by which the
artist enlivens the canvas surface: the dripping
of water-thin pigment against an atmospheric ground,
the evocative scratches, slashes and emblematic
markings, the assertive overlayering and erasures.
Veneracion keeps his paintings always in a state
of upheaval.
The manner of composition and design is eccentric
and idiosyncratic and, in some works, deliberately
provocative in their seeming disjointedness and
dislocation. Nothing validates this observation
more than a comment made by another artist (something
shared with us by Veneracion himself) that the works
look as if they had been assembled from different
parts of various paintings.
Indeed, this conundrum, or puzzle, lies at the very
heart of Veneracion’s art. Herein, most likely,
is the source of his strength. To wonder whether
Veneracion should give up abstraction for figuration
seems, to me, surprisingly irrelevant.
