LOS ANGELES, CA.- Walter Maciel Gallery presents new drawings from a series entitled Paisajes y Manchas Rorschach and a video entitled Las 400 Vueltas by Mexico City based artist Oscar Cueto. The exhibition marks Cueto’s third solo show with the gallery.
Oscar Cueto presents 18 small format drawings executed in colored graphite and based on different symmetrical patterns and shapes found in the Rorschach psychological tests. The stains are cleverly placed within landscapes taken from photographs of Cueto’s travels including city streets, urban parks and the ocean. The mysterious blots become monstrous creatures that create a fantasy of terror for the impending peaceful scenery. In one drawing a young boy is shown walking down a curvy path of a public park only to be greeted by the perfectly placed Rorschach monster. Depending on how the blot is interpreted, it looks both like a tree (in keeping with the surrounding forest) and a grotesque beast with flailing arms and feet. In another drawing the Rorschach stain is placed above the horizon line of the ocean appearing like a bat flying into the moody sky. In all of the drawings, the psychology of the ink blot forms is reversed as they themselves become the horror that impends on the otherwise serene and peaceful quality of each landscape. The series continues Cueto’s morose fascination with American horror films and their celebrity subjects as well as the demented capabilities of the human mind all within a humorous intent.
In conjunction, Cueto presents a new video animation entitled Las 400 Vueltas (The 400 Turns) that was hand drawn as a frame by frame video with the use of one piece of paper and meticulously erased information for each frame. The imagery shows a young boy walking towards a door and as he exits the other side he is a grown man. He walks back and forth with the poke of a human finger. The video is currently on view at Ex Teres a Arte Actual, part of the Instituto Nacional de Belles Artes in Mexico City where Cueto was included in the group show Sexy last winter. He has also recently been included in the group shows El incesante ciclo entre idea y accion at Museo de Arte Alvar y Carrillo Gil and Tiempo de sospecha: un ejercicio sobre comunicacion mediatica y ejercicios de informacion at Museo de Arte Moderno both in Mexico City. Last year Cueto had a solo show entitled Once Upon a Time at Planta Baja Space in Cuernavaca, Mexico. This fall he will be part of the residency program FONCA, Salzburger-Kunstverein in Salzburg, Austria and last year he did a residency at the School of Visual Arts Summer Residency Programs in New York. Cueto is included in many important private collections including the Jumex Collection in Mexico City.
