Ethereal, Meet Earthly

Comments (0) By : Silke Tudor Wednesday, May 9 2012

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Modern Eden

403 Francisco
San Francisco, CA 94133

Category: Galleries

Region: North Beach/ Chinatown

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If you have seen Antony & the Johnsons’ video for the song “Epilepsy Is Dancing,” you have already begun to glean the lush aesthetic of Mexico-born artists Tino Rodriguez and Virgo Paraiso: an opulent fantasy world filled with carnivorous flowers, dancing skeletons, shape-shifting animals, bedeviling twinkle lights, and the all-too-perceptive looking glass. And that’s just their apartment. Give them canvas and paint, and their imaginations flee from the laws of physics and the rules of man. At ease in the lowbrow art world, where surrealists and symbolists seek pop metaphors, Rodriguez uses fairy tale, myth, and idolatry from Europe and the Americas as a springboard into gardens of gun-toting fairies, swan-hearted gangsters, and rocking-horse meteorites. Armed with the hand of a Dutch master and the heart of the alchemist, Paraiso explores the liberation and frustration of metamorphosis: Hummingbirds sip from the flowers of human tongues, nymphs bathe under the gaze of cats, mermaids are ravaged by octopuses, erections become crowns of glory, and babies get stuck in spider webs. Bring Paraiso and Rodriguez together and you have “Pagan Poetry,” an unearthly visual romance somewhere between Frida Kahlo’s diary and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. While individually interesting, Rodriguez and Paraiso’s collaborations are works of pure chemistry — passionate, dangerous, funny, and challenging.
Wednesdays-Sundays. Starts: May 12. Continues through June 10, 2012