Seriously Playful: Paul Henry Ramirez, 1995-2004
Seriously Playful: Paul Henry Ramirez, 1995-2004
Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts University of Texas at El Paso
ART LIES: “Seriously Playful: Paul Henry Ramirez, 1995-2004”, Winter, 2005 by Stephanie L. Taylor
The grand opening of the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts added to the requisite tailgating melee in El Paso this past homecoming season. With it also comes a whole new lineup of contemporary art exhibitions in the area. Curator/Director Kate Bonansinga should be congratulated on the creation of this new space, formerly a neglected building on the UTEP campus. The Center provides the University with three new galleriesa total of 14,700 square feet of space for displayand promises to be a player in the local, regional and national art scenes.
The Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Gallery, the largest gallery space in the Center, was devoted to the inaugural exhibition Seriously Playful: Paul Henry Ramirez, 19952004. Ramirez, a former UTEP student and El Paso native, offers up an outrageous cacophony of color, texture and sound that envelopes and delights the viewer. His applied graphic style, honed by formal training as well as window display work in Manhattan, is delivered with healthy amounts of wit and nerve applied to every surface of the gallery, save the ceiling.
The walls of the Rubin Gallery were, in places, literally dripping with color. Ramirez takes a hands-on approach to installation, which means the outcome is not what one expects from a typical white cube gallery experience. Vast expanses of green and fuchsia emanate from his paintings and spread over large portions of the walls. Some of the works, such as Untitled (Space Addiction Series), literally squirt droplets of color out of rigid rectilinear borders, calling to mind the emanation of tears or sweat in comic-book shorthand. A graphic sensibility flowers throughout the gallery, all the way down to candy-colored benches provided for potentially overstimulated, weak-in-the-knees patrons. The benches were a perfect extension of the fields of color and geometric abstraction present in the drawings and paintings.
Across the length of the gallery, Ramirez scattered a series of sculptural painted works entitled Untitled Paint Pours (Elevations Transcendualistic Series) (2002). Each meticulous surfaceand foreknowledge of the obsessive technique employed to create these supposedly quick and dirty poursbelies the presumption of fun implied by the use of bold colors and graphic shapes. Ramirez practices, theorizes and experiments excessively to determine the precise color combination and patterns in each piece before committing them to canvas. So much for the carefree spontaneity of play. These things are definitely work.
Two outstanding works in Seriously Playful suggest an X-rated tone of eroticism and obsession in Ramirez brand of serious play. Super Slides (100% Virgin Vinyl Series) (1995), consists of four enormous scrolls of paper suspended from the ceiling, flowing into and invading the gallery space below. While the inclusion of bright colors and cartoonish shapes fits with the rest of the show, a closer look reveals the presence of lines and shapes that could be construed as pendulous breasts and wild thickets of pubic hair. The aggressive size and presentation of these works make the viewer think twice about the content of Ramirez art. Could the work be less innocent than it appears at first glance?
-Stephanie L. Taylor
Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts University of Texas at El Paso
ART LIES: “Seriously Playful: Paul Henry Ramirez, 1995-2004”, Winter, 2005 by Stephanie L. Taylor
The grand opening of the Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Center for the Visual Arts added to the requisite tailgating melee in El Paso this past homecoming season. With it also comes a whole new lineup of contemporary art exhibitions in the area. Curator/Director Kate Bonansinga should be congratulated on the creation of this new space, formerly a neglected building on the UTEP campus. The Center provides the University with three new galleriesa total of 14,700 square feet of space for displayand promises to be a player in the local, regional and national art scenes.
The Stanlee and Gerald Rubin Gallery, the largest gallery space in the Center, was devoted to the inaugural exhibition Seriously Playful: Paul Henry Ramirez, 19952004. Ramirez, a former UTEP student and El Paso native, offers up an outrageous cacophony of color, texture and sound that envelopes and delights the viewer. His applied graphic style, honed by formal training as well as window display work in Manhattan, is delivered with healthy amounts of wit and nerve applied to every surface of the gallery, save the ceiling.
The walls of the Rubin Gallery were, in places, literally dripping with color. Ramirez takes a hands-on approach to installation, which means the outcome is not what one expects from a typical white cube gallery experience. Vast expanses of green and fuchsia emanate from his paintings and spread over large portions of the walls. Some of the works, such as Untitled (Space Addiction Series), literally squirt droplets of color out of rigid rectilinear borders, calling to mind the emanation of tears or sweat in comic-book shorthand. A graphic sensibility flowers throughout the gallery, all the way down to candy-colored benches provided for potentially overstimulated, weak-in-the-knees patrons. The benches were a perfect extension of the fields of color and geometric abstraction present in the drawings and paintings.
Across the length of the gallery, Ramirez scattered a series of sculptural painted works entitled Untitled Paint Pours (Elevations Transcendualistic Series) (2002). Each meticulous surfaceand foreknowledge of the obsessive technique employed to create these supposedly quick and dirty poursbelies the presumption of fun implied by the use of bold colors and graphic shapes. Ramirez practices, theorizes and experiments excessively to determine the precise color combination and patterns in each piece before committing them to canvas. So much for the carefree spontaneity of play. These things are definitely work.
Two outstanding works in Seriously Playful suggest an X-rated tone of eroticism and obsession in Ramirez brand of serious play. Super Slides (100% Virgin Vinyl Series) (1995), consists of four enormous scrolls of paper suspended from the ceiling, flowing into and invading the gallery space below. While the inclusion of bright colors and cartoonish shapes fits with the rest of the show, a closer look reveals the presence of lines and shapes that could be construed as pendulous breasts and wild thickets of pubic hair. The aggressive size and presentation of these works make the viewer think twice about the content of Ramirez art. Could the work be less innocent than it appears at first glance?
-Stephanie L. Taylor