Some of Ponjuán's drawings
featured in Gallery 106 seem to be conceived as projects for
a kind of combinatory object. An image with horns emerging from
it, books that are chained, pierced, tortured. In reality, all
of these drawings have a closeness to the plan, to the idea
in process, and play with the appearance of the unfinished sketches.
That tone is achieved with the minimal selection of the medium:
pencil, graphite, and watercolors, and the use of lined paper
that give this collection of drawings a seal of immediateness
in spite of the meticulous technique and the attention to details.
These works make us think of the artistic image as a product
that is potentially measurable. It also invites us to reflect
upon the difficulties inherent to any attempt to equate the
artistic with the mechanical and with the rigidity of preconceived
structures. The drawn images, some aggressive and some almost
sweet, emerge from the graph paper like an affirmation, perhaps
too romantic, of the ability of art to overcome limits and restrictions.
These drawings have other implications
as well. Some can be appreciated as parodies of commercial art
and of the most stereotypical illustrations. The female figures,
as well as the anatomical fragments that appear in many of the
works, have been taken from the work of Andrew Loomis, a North
American commercial artist whose books, originally published
in the forties and fifties, were reprinted in Cuba during the
seventies. The most popular of these books, titled "Drawing
of Success" ("Dibujo de Éxito"), offers
quick recipes for drawing any kind of thing. It pays special
attention to the human figure, represented in poses that go,
according to Loomis' aesthetic ideals, from the pedantic to
the slightly erotic. Ponjuán explores the possibilities
of these "prefabricated" images. He puts them in new
contexts, and exalts with irony the ridiculous aspect of the
representations and the sometimes pompous, sometimes prim and
proper, sense of the illustrations that are promoted as safe
recipes for artists in search of success.
-Excerpted from an essay by Tonel
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