Victor Payares - Walking on a Dream

Victor Payares. Along runs a river, 2009. Mixed media on canvas. 72" x 54"

Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery - Miami

March 14 - April 25, 2009

 By Irina Leyva-Pérez

 “Walking on a Dream“ is the title of the recent solo exhibition by Victor Payares at Lyle O. Reitzel Gallery in Miami. A selection of eight pieces from his oeuvre of the last three years, this exhibition reflects a fantastic world entirely created by the artist, a kind of surreal alternative to his surroundings.  The paintings are like color explosions and fragments from science fiction movies. These pieces offer the artist’s view, a sort of apocalyptic imagery in which part of the world as we know it and another part that seems futuristic and chaotic converge, similar to a passage from an Isaac Asimov story. 

One of the central pieces of the exhibition is Signs of time (2007), a desolate landscape which suggests human presence through objects such as machines and transit signs flying around the space. The landscape is arid, only a waterfall implies the continuity of the natural world. He is using as support one of the oldest genres: landscape. Nevertheless, the juxtaposition of implausible elements such as cosmic explosions and traveling machines place the work in a postmodern context.

Fantastic object (2008) is perhaps one of the most personal of all the pieces exhibited. It is a room that could be the artist’s domestic space and studio simultaneously. In it, he places the typical cans of paint and also a disproportionate insect on the ceiling. On the lower side of the canvas, there is an image of a drowning man, hanging onto a painted chair. The metaphor alludes to the struggles that artists go through to create their work. The emptiness of half of the place and the disorder of the other half represent his life, divided between life and work, and reflect his priorities: his work comes first.

Payares is translating his own stories, experiences and life values into these canvases in a sort of awake-unconscious state of mind. Behind these pieces we can see the contemporary man that he is, preoccupied by his future. The allegoric elements included in the pieces often relate to a culture derived from science fiction in general. The narrative behind each piece corresponds to a very personal perspective, constructing each scene from what appears to be an oneiric world.

Irina Leyva-Pérez: BA in Art History (University of Havana, Cuba). Former Assistant Curator at the National Gallery of Jamaica. Currently Curator of PanAmerican Art Projects. She resides in Miami, FL .