As I watch my partner Danny Licul move out of his studio of four years, I am flooded with memories of many visits, the stages of the work, and numerous excited reports about the day’s accomplishments.  The scale model of his grade school, which he built and uses in his painting process, currently has staircases piled on the roof.

My state of mind is reflected around the room in Danny’s paintings.  As we remember things, our mind is filled with the cacophonous harmony of the experience, evocative images, sensations and emotions, and our renewed analysis through the distance of time. His mission is to depict this phenomenon on very large canvases, so that different scenes, elements and psychological perspectives become prominent depending on the viewer’s physical distance from the surface, all while maintaining visual cohesion throughout. In this studio, Danny honed many techniques for creating transparencies, patterns and cracks through which imagery is masked or revealed.

 

 

In the painting in front of me, a schoolboy hurdles over his desk wielding his pencil-sword as his classmates look on. As I step back, the adult face of the artist seemingly laughs at the situation. The past dissipates as the present comes into focus, and visa versa. In other paintings, a humiliated boy’s state of mind crystallizes into Rambo piercing the scene, staircases morph into undulating waves of confusion, and an expressionless boy’s terror is revealed when a series of neon-colored screaming faces emerge through the wall behind him.  The paintings are vividly alive and draw energy and insight from one another like the recollections bouncing around in our heads.

As this studio recedes into the past, chashama is relocating Danny and many of the other residents to their building in Sunset Park.  I look forward to experiencing his memories that will be unleashed there. 

Links www.kanderson.tv and www.dannylicul.com