While he reflects himself in the mirror, Dionysus does not see himself, he sees the reflection of the world. And it is this mirror, reflection of a double world, that Gildo Medina decided to use for his exhibition “The Mirror Of Dionysus” at the Gallery 13 Jeannette Mariani which took place in Paris from 19 March to 30 April 2010.
Duality of a style where the artist mixes photography with drawing in unique pieces, where we don’t know anymore if we are in the presence of a drawing that turns into a photograph or of a photograph that is drawn little by little from nothing. Perfectly mastering the current digital technologies, he combines the traditional technique of drawing in a coherent whole of apparent simplicity, but of extreme complexity. And thus delivers to us the keys of its interior combat and its emotional and especially creative mutilations.
Duality of a world where violence and beauty are side by side as in the myth of the birth of Aphrodite. In Hesiod’s“Thegogony” and in popular tradition, Aphrodite is born from the sea, fertilized by the sex of Ouranos, severed by Cronos: “All around, a white foam came out of the divine member. From this foam a daughter was formed.” Aphrodite, by birth, brought love into the world, but added three other “qualities”: lies, dissimulation and hatred, and these qualities decided to accompany love wherever it went.
Born in 1980 in Mexico City, Gildo Medina studied visual arts, photography and graphic design at Saint-Martins School in London, L’Accademia Delle’Arte in Florence, Universidad Iberoamericana and Academia de San Carlos in Mexico City. Gildo Medina is represented in six different countries and has no less than 25 awards and prizes.
For Gildo Medina, as for Aphrodite born from a mutilation, from violence can be born beauty. His work is influenced by this oppressive ambiguity between the world of beauty that he experiences as a photographer and art director, and the violence of our world, which itself inspires another form of beauty. He will therefore take up this myth but by revealing the “spontaneous erotic stages” that lead from the birth of love to the death of the lovers.
The artist begins by telling us about his new Aphrodites in the series “Decomposition”. His Aphrodites become ethereal, almost unreal between the softness of the photograph and the halos of color that he draws on the bodies of these beloved women, sublimated. The artist goes on to describe the body of the lover, bruised and in pain in the series “Mutilation / Mutilation”. The added drawings fill in the gaps, the shortcomings of the suffering man, who is only pieces like Ouranos after his mutilation. Then Gildo Medina ends with the killing of the lovers in the series “Nobody”, replaying the death of illustrious couples of literature. The faces of these cursed lovers are systematically erased, replaced by spots of color. They make them blind to signify the blindness of their own conscience subjected to the violence of love and force them, no longer to contemplate themselves, but to understand themselves through the mirror of Dyonisos.
Marie-Odile Radom
Photo credit:
Decomposition #3, Yellow – 2010 – Drawing on Fine Art Paper
Unique piece © Gildo Medina – Courtesy Galerie 13 Jeannette Mariani
Mutation Mutilation #2- 2010 – Drawing on Fine Art Paper 115×150 cm
Unique piece © Gildo Medina – Courtesy Galerie 13 Jeannette Mariani
Mutation Mutilation #6 2010 Drawing on Fine Art Paper 89×120 cm
Unique piece © Gildo Medina – Courtesy Galerie 13 Jeannette Mariani
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