Emma Gonzalez
Staff Writer
The opening reception for “Intimate Spectacles,” a two-person exhibition showcasing the paintings of Elham Bayati and Lester Monzon, was held at the Harris Gallery on Nov. 7.
The gallery is full of bright paintings with varying colors from orange to blue. Both artists compliment each other through the color scheme and designs.
Bayati’s paintings are full of patterns and layering that consist of fabrics and florals. The story behind Bayati’s paintings are about different memories and emotions that represent characteristics of the Iranian cultural heritage.
Monzon’s playful and radiant paintings feature graphs, circles and lines. His detailed paintings can represent society structuralism.
“When I was really young, I wanted to do what most kids wanted to do at the time in the ’80s, which was to draw comic books and stuff like that,” Monzon said. “I knew I was having a lot of fun because it would affect my school because that’s all I was doing.”
One of Monzon’s paintings is a grid with circles of different colors with visible brush strokes. The strokes once wrote the words “Dear God.”
“I painted ‘Dear God,’ the text, and then I destroyed it,” said Monzon. “I went through the process of putting the color in and destroying it to the point where the brush stroke. This is the one that a few of my friends can see most noticeably and they can tell that it looks like there’s a word.”
The work of Bayati focuses on feminism and this contemporary western life. It conveys political messages about past and present societal cultural identities.
“A recent pattern that I use is the fence that came from the traditional pictures from Iran that I found in a book in the United States,” Bayati said. “It has the meaning of barrier for me as a woman in culture and Iranian woman as a lot of barriers that women usually experience.”
At first glance, one of the Bayati paintings captures a beautiful and elegant wedding at first glance. The colorful patterns and bouquet of flowers shown are blended and are partially painted and partially fabric.
After looking at the painting for a longer time, there seems to be a deeper meaning and emotional impact.
“I think when you’re getting married and at weddings, you think that they should be happy, and you just don’t get that vibe,” Joseph Nicosia, junior studio arts major, said. “I mean, the guy, you can’t even see his face. It’s kind of a representation of her parents’ wedding photos, and all the feelings she has from that relationship, from her mom and her dad, and maybe even their relationship, how they may have thought about it.”
A further painting of Monzon is full of green to represent COVID and the state of the world at that time.
“The idea of exhaling – the color green, I want it to seem like there’s an exhale of germs a little bit,” Monzon said. “It sets up a position for the viewer to look and to see things differently because then hopefully that opens up for you to see politics differently and society differently.”
Both artists have paintings that deal with movements. For Bayati, there seems to be a movement in figures. For Monzon, there is also movement in brush strokes.
“I think personally because I’m a painter myself, I feel very inspired,” Syndri Alvarez, visitor, a senior studio art major who visited the reception, said. “I get to have my initial view of the paintings and then actually get to talk to them.”
The Harris Gallery on campus is open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m Monday through Thursday.
The “Intimate Spectacles” exhibition runs through Dec. 6.
Emma Gonzalez can be reached at emma.gonzalez@laverne.edu.
Emma Gonzalez is a junior communications major with a concentration in public relations and a minor in marketing, and a staff writer for the Campus Times. Her interests include community involvement, art, traveling and writing. Emma’s long-term career objective revolves around working for a nonprofit organization that is passionate about helping a target group of individuals. Follow her on Handshake.
