PRESS RELEASE
ONLINE EXHIBITION
November 17 – 31 December, 2021
Preview: November 15 – 16
Ronewa Art Projects is pleased to present the gestural, introspective paintings and drawings of American artist Douglas Diaz. From November 17 to 31 December, the Ronewa online viewing room will showcase Diaz’s latest series of works on paper that probe questions of memory and identity construction via the artist’s disciplined artistic process of self-exploration.
Diaz’s practice is an exercise in residing fully in the present moment. The foundation beneath his new body of work Memorias is a questioning of the way we perceive time and memories as fixed and linear. In reality, we filter the past through our current lived experience; memories, histories, and identities are creations remade over and over in the present.
Sparked by his impressions walking around Milan, Diaz considers how layers of information build up to form our experiences as human beings and our collective histories. The horizontal lines of the works titled 'Finding myself within time' mimic this stratification of time and memory. A series of red, white, and blue paintings take their inspiration and titles from influential writer James Baldwin’s racialized lens on the American historical narrative. Other series of works dwell on memories formed in the throes of love and on the details of information we attach to nostalgic memories.
Diaz begins every artwork with a meditation to reach a passive state of awareness where he can be receptive to the memories and emotions that wash over him. What comes out on the paper is a series of intuitive gestures. His drawings are abstract, layered, and enigmatic. Among the Memorias works, Diaz employs several modes of mark marking: broad strokes, paint drips, sketchy drawings, repetition of lines, and scrawled words. The expressive intensity of these marks communicate the depth with which the artist commits himself to the act of feeling in the moment.
About the artist:
Douglas Diaz (b. 1972) is a Brooklyn, New York-born artist. His work explores questions of his own humanity, challenging preconceptions and thoughts, embracing fears and the darkness that lies deep within the unconscious in an attempt to gain spiritual equanimity. He has exhibited in solo and group shows since 2015 across Australia, Indonesia, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, and the United States. In 2017, Diaz held his first solo museum exhibition 'SHUKKE' at Art 1 Museum, Indonesia. His work is collected privately and publicly in more than 20 countries.