Royo Exhibition May 1st – May 3rd

“All the mistakes committed by great artists are due to their having separated themselves from truth, believing that their imagination is stronger....”
Joaquin Sorolla

Royo was in the gallery several minutes before the word got around. Strangely, he too seemed diminished by the monumental presence of the paintings, to the extent that few could entertain notice of much else. But as the hours drifted by it was oddly evident that Royo was not attending just another opening but really came to say good-by. Should you spend enough time with artists you will come to understand the process by which they individually separate themselves from the alternate universe of creation and the images they coax from it. The women in Royo’s life are perpetually part of it, but the vignettes of their ponderous days, suspended interminably in oil paint, are flung across the continents, floating gracefully into vast halls and grand dining rooms.

What collectors wonder most about Royo compositions are the detached gazes of the familiar women he adoringly courts. Conjecture about this is wide and varied. We are told a Royo painting isn’t about capturing beauty but more importantly the essence of it. But it occurs to me the dialog should instead be about introspective trance. Essence all the same but vastly more challenging to compose.

If, as Sorolla suggests, the “mistakes” committed by the masters is “believing that their imaginations are stronger…” than “truth” then it is reasonable to assume that Royo is flawless in his compositional precepts as he does not delineate his imagination but instead that of his subjects. What master Royo “imagines” is not in his painting, it is in his eyes and his conversations. What the women in Royo’s life “imagine” is what the artist promises to unravel. Pursuing this discovery as vehemently as collectors gazing out a living room window, anticipating the arrival of their acquisition.

The Royo show hosted at the EC Fashion Valley Gallery May 1st – 3rd was a virtual sell out. Little surprise. Shortly after the artist quietly returned to his Spanish villa and the introspective gaze of women he does not imagine.

A Merriam Sighting April 3rd – April 5th

Daniel Merriam was the likeable kid in your math class perpetually hunched over his desk, furiously festooning acres of Pee Chee real estate with progressively complex, mind bending doodles. Stuff that made no sense. Stuff that made a lot of sense. He was the grinning curiosity the Gym teacher hollered at to “Wipe that smirk off your face Merriam!” Something he did not do, nor could he do because it was eternally installed there by God as a reminder that not every one of the geniuses he sent our way was a brooding itinerant misfit. The wry smile, still there today, was the unintended consequence of an overwhelming sense of amazement that he had discovered a means of externally exhibiting his wildest imaginings.

Daniel Merriam exited school days through the door reserved for those kids with movie star looks and the easy charm of a golf pro. Everyone just knew he had peaked and that they would bump into him in the unemployment line ten years later, hitting them up for a smoke. But instead he threw it all away to become one of the worlds most significant artists of our time. That is everything except the good looks and charm, and the brains and….well you get the picture.

Daniel Merriam appeared at the Gaslamp Gallery in downtown San Diego April 5th and the next night at the Fashion Valley Mall Gallery, both to SRO crowds. People came just to see if there really was a Daniel Merriam or if his stunning brain teasing art was in fact the collaborative works of Pixar Studios and Area 51 hostages. I first laid eyes on him across the exhibition room at Gas Lamp and thought, “No way! He’s too good looking and too nice to people for someone that good looking!”

There is only one other artist I would (dare) place in the genre that Daniel Merriam effortlessly commands and that would be Gil Bruvel. Turns out they are good friends, and it’s a good thing I found this out because I am so angry at Daniel for being such a likeable guy I was thinking of calling Gil and complaining. I mean, after all, what ever happened to artists passing out drunk at their openings and scaring the kids?

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