Oakland

Miguel Arzabe’s Kaleidoscopic Thunderbolt

by Agustin Maes | Oct 23, 2023 10:15 am

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Posted to: Visual Art

“Animales Familiares”
Works by Miguel Arzabe
Johansson Project
2300 Telegraph Ave.
Oakland
Through Oct. 28, 2023

Color is a beautiful language, not often well spoken, but ​“Animales Familiares,” on exhibit at Johansson Projects, is fluent in it. Arzabe’s visual lingua franca is intuitively graspable by anyone despite the works’ complex geometric grammar. And if his paintings’ tactile-looking geometries seem woven, that’s because they are. After replicating modernist paintings, Arzabe has them disassembled into lengths of canvas he then reassembles, weaving them into patterns that reference the textile crafts of his Bolivian heritage. But their multivalence goes beyond mere cultural reference. That’s a difficult — and laudable — thing to do, especially given how much contemporary art is made on behalf of cultural representation at the expense of what transcends personal identity. Although Arzabe’s work very clearly has its roots in his ancestry, it does what art should: compelling the eye toward an unexpected and unique vision that doesn’t exclude but instead welcomes and captivates.

I’m a big fan of color that immediately doinks one’s eye-cones: what makes you look. But getting me to look again, to linger, requires an understanding of how color isn’t simply an end in itself. My first eye-grab was Arzabe’s ​“Puma Roja” which caught my attention straight away: an arc of negative space filled with jagged blacks and grays framing the visual narrative whilst also allowing it to break that frame. The stylized feline in its midst lies in wait under a bow of gradated serration in varying shades of orange, pink, yellow. The puma is both immediately and obliquely apparent, its mouth almost clenched looking, bestowing upon those jagged edges the sharpness of its figurative teeth.

The effect of shape upon color upon shape is dazzling. And with nearly every large work grouped together in the Johansson Projects space (most of the large pieces are around seven by nine feet or larger) it’s easy to become mesmerized by the ocean of impeccably ordered color and shape. It’s a spellbinding assemblage but curated well as to keep the viewer from becoming overwhelmed.

Not all of Arzabe’s works contain figures that are easily seen. Or else, they’re seen peripherally. That’s what caused me to pause at length on ​“Flamencos,” (pictured below,) a work deeply interesting because ofits intense depth. Sure, there are figures, but they’re subtly rendered, the color forms and patterns themselves the focus — the whole once again framed and underlined by superb negative space that mirrors configurations that in this instance are indirectly perceptible.

Arzabe’s workmanship and skill in scrupulously executing his painted-and-woven works point to a meticulousness of vision. That most of his formal education is in the sciences is no surprise. Besides holding an MFA from the University of California, Berkeley, he has a BS in mechanical engineering from Carnegie Mellon University and an MS in environmental fluid dynamics from Arizona State University. Arzabe’s precision and care in realizing his work is impressive, as is his virtuosic grasp of how color and form can operate seamlessly and complimentarily.

“Animales Familiares” is a kaleidoscopic thunderbolt.

Also on view in Johansson Projects’ side gallery: ​“All Up In Your Mind: Blackstrap” by Richard-Jonathan Nelson.

Tags: Gallery , oakland , Art , woven