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Tomás Rivas

Tallada la Columna, 2007

Carving on Drywall

4 x4’

Walking into Scope was like entering a sex shop -not that I’ve ever been in one. I feel provoked, slightly disturbed and petrified, however highly amused. All walks of the art community surround me. But most importantly the works of international young emerging artists and their representation of art - an unusual madness I wouldn’t find in any museum or avenue in NYC. As I make my way through the crowds I enter a small oasis. Actually it is booth 17 representing douz & mille Gallery from Washington DC.

I am momentarily transcended. The artist’s name is Tomás Rivas. And I feel like I’m in love again… I see truth, beauty, and inspiration. Ok, what do I really see?

Manipulations of 2 dimensional lines and 3 dimensional carvings of beautiful patterns into blocks of drywall. Fleur de lis, curling out and under like yesterdays rose petals. An exposed column making me daydream I was living in ancient Greece.

It’s no surprise to me when Rody Douzoglou, the Gallerist, explains that Rivas has recently received two prestigious awards: The Outstanding Student Achievement Award of the International Sculpture Center publishers of Sculpture Magazine, and the Snite Museum of Art's Walter R. Beardsley Award for Best in Show.

Tomás Rivas

Roseton Clasico con Grecas en Angulo

Carving on Drywall

4 x4'

Born in Santiago de Chile in 1975, son of an Architect, he has been inspired by classical and neoclassical architecture. He has taken abandoned buildings and molding his way through, revealed several layers of old paint to expose his workmanship.

Of his unconventional methods he has stated:
“It is the nature of pattern and ornamentation, as both bearers of meaning and pure visual pleasure, which becomes the main theme that organizes my work. This is investigated in the context of perception, and my tool for investigating perception is the questioning of conventions for representing space, culture, and power. I intend to distill meaning out of ornament by confronting the viewer with its creation in an unfamiliar format.”

I leave this oasis. Back to reality. I mean, who really wants to see a video of a woman hunched over with milk squirting out of her breasts into a puddle beneath her feet -represented by New York’s award winning video and film program The Perpetual Art Machine. What’s at stake when an artist creates this? Who actually wants a piece of that on their wall? Perpetrators? Collectors? I’d really like to know... what’s the market for bad transgressive art?

But as Scope is here to represent such a wide diversity of emerging artists, I begin to wonder about the longevity of these artists. I am getting the feeling that Tomás Rivas will be one of the brilliant emerging artists that will be around 10 years, 50 years, when we are no longer around. And isn’t this what the artist soul aspires towards? Immortality?

By Monica Mejia

Links:
www.douzandmille.com