MICHAEL ALZAMORA
SMOKING FIGURES WITH LANDING GEAR
This series of paintings was conceptualized and painted at the VanDuzer art studio in Toronto, Canada from 2015 to 2018. I call this project "The VanDuzer Series." They were executed in a Surreal Expressionism fashion.
“Smoking Figures with Landing Gear” is a juxtaposition I use to describe my broad struggles and symptoms of schizophrenia.
Since I lead a healthy lifestyle I find cigarette smoke as a pollutant. The smoke poisons the body with adverse effects just like schizophrenia poisons the mind. The black and white squares at the base of the cigarette and deposited in organs signify the solidification of inhaled smoke. It makes its permanent home inside the body just like schizophrenia makes its home inside the mind. However, the smoking action has another meaning. In my paintings, the smoke makes the figures light headed. This is represented by floating eye balloons. The raising of the eye balloons can signify temporary freedom from schizophrenia.
The landing gear is in opposition in meaning to the smoking figure. Smoke raises while the landing gear in the down position anchors the figure. In other words, the landing gear in the down position prevents liberation from schizophrenia. The smoking action and the landing gear are in battle between the liberation from illness and the entrapment of symptoms of the illness.
Some paintings, for example, “Smoking Figure with Amputated Arms,” show what appears to be sawed off branches from an organic treelike shape. The rings that appear when a branch is sawed off is also displayed on these paintings giving them not only a human identity but also an organic composition. I am not sure about the meaning of the fusion of human and organic composition but the common denominator is a feeling of helplessness and hopelessness brought about by schizophrenia.
In this series of paintings, I execute the composition in three planes. They all have an ultramarine background. Over that is a middle plane made up of concentric shapes executed in a pastel colour pallet. Finally, the foreground is made up of organic and mechanical composition. In some paintings I take a post cubist approach. Sometimes I have the figure meandering between the middle plane and the foreground.
The fact that the landing gear is totally detached from the composition is in tune to what I call Flat Surrealism. I juxtapose objects in a single plane disjointed, whose meaning is derived by relationship only. The landing gear and smoking figure are separated in the canvas, yet they become the central theme.