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![\"Exhibition](\"http:\/\/ericksanchez.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/538388_10150806379440809_676730808_11634643_1773369956_n.jpg\" "\\"538388_10150806379440809_676730808_11634643_1773369956_n\\"")
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\u201cI will show you fear in a handful of dust\u201d:\u00a0 An Earth Day Exhibit, featuring paintings and installations by visual artist Erick S\u00e1nchez.
\nThe Gallery Space at Wagner\/Robert F. Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, New York University.
\nCurated by Frankie Crescioni-Santoni and Ann Chwatsky<\/p>\n
In commemoration of International Earth Day and in conjunction with Earth Week at NYU, visual artist Erick S\u00e1nchez has created four abstract-expressionist landscape paintings, installation work, and works on paper for the exhibit, \u201cI will show you fear in a handful of dust\u201d: An Earth Day Exhibit. These are the latest pieces in his environmentally-focused project, Dangerous Land, which gives visual representation to the consequences of human behavior and the concomitant natural disasters which are the results of globalization, industrialization, and global warming. With this project, S\u00e1nchez argues for intensified environmental conservation efforts.<\/p>\n
The inspiration for the exhibit\u2019s central painting, \u201cI will show you fear in a handful of dust,\u201d is lines 19-30 1 from Part I, \u201cThe Burial of the Dead,\u201d of T.S. Eliot\u2019s poem, The Waste Land.\u00a0 In this well-known section of the poem, Eliot adapts some of\u00a0 its crucial imagery\u2014the rocky, barren landscape, the absence of life-giving water, and the dead or dying vegetation\u2014from the Biblical books of Ezekiel, Isaiah, and Ecclesiastes to suggest that \u201crain\u201d is the nourishment which will revive a dying culture in body and spirit. Likewise, S\u00e1nchez\u2019s somber depiction of an arid poppy field, which offers no sustenance to the birds flying overhead, and menacing clouds, which serve as a harbinger of things to come, suggests that the world is moving towards crisis and chaos. The piece is also a re-interpretation of Monet\u2019s Poppy Fields series; S\u00e1nchez revisits the scene to suggest the consequences of global warming and human-originated ecological disturbances some 150 years later.\u00a0 With the size of the painting, his use of contrasting colors for great effect, and the melancholic beauty of this powerful scene, S\u00e1nchez leaves the viewer with an intense psychological impression and confronts him or her to consider his or her particular role in the Earth\u2019s future. S\u00e1nchez\u2019s \u201cAhora lo tuyo no te pertenece\u201d features another physically barren landscape, this time with an empty river; this wasteland points to the decay and destruction of human values in a world consumed by globalization, industrialization, and global warming. Our own mortality\u2014\u201cfear in a handful of dust\u201d\u2014is once again frighteningly revealed.<\/p>\n
\u201cMe distes oro del que no brilla\u201d is S\u00e1nchez\u2019s rendering of the worst environmental disaster the U.S. has faced: the BP Deepwater Horizon Spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010.\u00a0 S\u00e1nchez\u2019s thick brushstrokes and the intense blackness of the combination of materials used for the painting\u2019s cresting waves of oil convey a sense of immediacy and danger. It is a painful reminder of the some 205.8 million gallons of oil spilled there and the 1,100,000 gallons of chemical dispersants used in the cleanup, as well as the extensive resulting damage to marine and wildlife habitats and to the Gulf\u2019s fishing and tourism industries.<\/p>\n
In this series of paintings, S\u00e1nchez is working with some unconventional combinations of materials, including recycled metals, clay, recycled rubber, glass beads, black magnum rock, and organic pigments, to make his acrylic paints very rich in texture.\u00a0 His \u201cWorks on Paper\u201d series is an opportunity for him to showcase his impulsive brushwork; experiment with color, texture, and combination of materials; and get inspiration for future compositions. The exceptional intensity of emotions and instantaneity of these pieces make them true \u201cmini-apocalypses.\u201d<\/p>\n
Regarding the natural disasters represented in his Dangerous Land series, Erick S\u00e1nchez has remarked: \u201cTheologists call it the Apocalypse; the Rapture. I call it destiny.\u201d In traditional Christian thought, \u201capocalypse\u201d refers to some future cataclysmic event that will bring time to an end and inaugurate a new millennium. The apocalyptic mode, whether in the Bible, in literature, or art, involves a visionary who represents truth in word and image and encourages a change of heart and mind. With his visual manifesto, Erick S\u00e1nchez serves as an artistic seer affecting us with the \u201cterrible\u201d beauty of his landscapes, confronting us with our culpability and vulnerability and thereby motivating change. The immediacy suggested is fitting for Earth Day 2012.<\/p>\n
Christina Godlewski, Ph.D.<\/p>\n
1 What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
\nOut of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
\nYou cannot say, or guess, for you know only
\nA heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
\nAnd the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
\nAnd the dry stone no sound of water. Only
\nThere is shadow under this red rock,
\n(Come in under the shadow of this red rock),
\nAnd I will show you something different from either
\nYour shadow at morning striding behind you
\nOr your shadow at evening rising to meet you;
\nI will show you fear in a handful of dust.
\nT.S. Eliot,\u00a0 The Waste Land (19-30)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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