“Emerging” as in new to the arts scene? That would be about two-thirds incorrect. “Emerging” as in the gay concept of coming out” That might be.
It was an art exhibition at the Cafe de Asis, a benefit for the social programs of the Asociacion Hombres y Mujeres Nuevos de Panama (AHMNP), the organizational expression of Panama’s gay and lesbian community. The featured artists were Gordon Jaime Pineo, and Argentine painter who has exhibited his work in Argentina, the United States, Canada, France and Italy, and who has done work on commission for the Inter-American Development Bank; Laura Limpias, a Bolivian who draws and paints, mostly in miniature, and has had exhibitions around Latin America, in the US and in France; and Juan Antonio Tarté, a Panamanian graphic design student who on this occasion was displaying abstract art in the photographic genre.
Pineo’s paintings were male torsos, mostly nude, mostly abstract silhouettes in bright acrylics. He also had a couple of other pictures in the same general theme, but in more subdued oil paintings. To my eye the best of his works was one of his acrylics, “Un Dios,” depicting a light blue figure against a yellow background and an orange sun, with symbolism borrowed from the Hindus, Zoroastrians and Freemasons. The most recognizably gay painting was “Leather,” another acrylic silhouette of a guy in a black leather vest, seen from behind taking off his pants. The better of his oil paintings was “Moreno,” a black man’s torso against a blue background, with a good representation of light.
Limpias exhibited one larger charcoal sketch, but otherwise a collection of miniature female nudes, painted with great realism and in little arched frames, in a style pioneered long ago by Dutch and Flemish artists. Her figures are painted as if against a black or dark brown background, and modeled in a dark room illuminated by a soft and rather narrow spotlight. Where the light hits part of the body is depicted in detail, but farther from the center of the light you see traces of the figure at most.
Tarté exhibited three large photographs that were anything but snapshots. In only one of the photos, “Fantasma,” was there any recognizable object, and then it seemed to be an ordinary apartment or office building by night, with multiple exposures and movements of the camera to give it an eerie, ephemeral feeling. His paintings had colored streaks that bore some similarities to what you get if you put a camera on a tripod and hold the lens open for several seconds, pointing it at a busy street at night. But the colors and paths would seem to rule out any such simple technique. I wonder if he was “painting” on a film “canvas” in a dark place, using multiple exposures and colored penlights.
This two-day show didn’t get much publicity outside the gay and lesbian community, which was unfortunate because besides being a benefit this was a legitimate and worthy artistic event. However, I did notice that some of the works had been sold, which will give the AHMNP some more resources for their fight against discrimination and their programs for the health and dignity of their communities.
