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LOS ANGELES — Some Tales, Jose Bonell’s solo present at Varied Small Fires, is a mix of heat and funky dreamscapes, a dip into the silvery membrane between our waking and imaginary lives. The Barcelona-based Catalonian artist’s oil work traverse and reinterpret the world of folks and fairy tales. Appendages are featured extensively within the works: toes, legs, a spidery hand with 9 fingers. Bonell’s tales spin a scheherazadian net, not counting on basic narrative construction however relatively telling bits and items of tales, permitting us to think about what we can’t see.
A goofy frog sporting a crown dominates the canvas of “The Little Prince” (2023), an ode to the German fairy story “The Frog Prince.” The frog gazes up, presumably at a princess who’s about to kiss him or kick him towards the wall — relying on which model of the story you like — and switch him again right into a human prince. In “One Time” (2022), a turquoise foot pointing upward, towards a blue background, wears a gold ring across the huge toe and a beaded anklet, whereas “The Final Hour” (2023) encompasses a grey foot pointing downward towards a darker grey background, surrounded by shards of glass suspended in midair. Maybe each are an homage to Cinderella, if the glass slipper broke. Equally, “Tangled Hair” (2023) evokes the story of Rapunzel, with a wavy, luxurious mane centered on the canvas and several other arms with painted fingernails reaching out to the touch the messy locks. And in “The Candidate” (2023), a hand with 9 fingers bears eight engagement rings; a bunch of doable suitors supply extra rings alongside the periphery. The work feedback on the narrative of the “fairy story engagement” we’ve all been fed by Disney, and all of those work problem the parable of the one and solely “soulmate” who involves the rescue.
The work are hung salon type, a storyboard of surreal enchantment with hints of sarcasm, contradiction, and altruism. The present factors to the operate of fairy tales as morals and classes to stay by, however the fables are interrupted in lots of works by lamps and campfires (a dozen small fires might be seen within the portray “Reunión” (2020), a nod to the gallery). They counsel that illumination might lie elsewhere, as they mild the best way again from the dream world to the true world.
Jose Bonell: Some Tales continues at Varied Small Fires (812 North Highland Avenue, Hollywood, Los Angeles) by way of July 29. The exhibition was organized by the gallery.
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