LuminArt? mounts Soft Machine a solo show for Bolivian-based artist Keiko Gonzalez

Keiko Gonzalez’s newest series entitled Soft Machine references the William Burroughs novel, The Soft Machine, an abstract piece of writing and collage of thoughts that resemble Gonzalez’s own collage of continuously and vibrantly renewed images, always through the lens of process.

The title also invokes the human figure?a recurring reference and key part of the painter’s larger abstract vocabulary which circles back to the artist himself as a soft machine, and maker of a thousand paintings. 

Behind his thirty-year practice, Gonzales studies literature, pop culture, modern painting and contemporary world politics. He embraces his surroundings through his work by transferring a blend of shapes and colors across the canvas. His work is not explicit, rather evoking a feeling that the viewer?s perspective is key to understanding. 

Gonzalez was born in Houston, Texas and currently lives and works in the high Altiplano of La Paz, Bolivia. It?s there where we reach Gonzalez before he embarks on a journey to a ?flurry of places? before ending in Dallas for his solo show. Opening Nov. 10, Soft Machine will remain on view through Jan. 27 at LuminArte Gallery.

Patron: Your work seems to explore density of color. Can you explain your process?  

Keiko Gonzalez: My process is very intuitive. I don?t have any preconceived notion of what the painting will look like when it?s done?if it ever gets done. I tend to start a lot of paintings at the same time. I let the paintings feed off each other and just go off the work. 

P: Can you touch on your brand of Lyrical Expressionism

KG: People are always asking me what I am doing. I can?t always say what I was doing (while painting), but I can say what I wasn?t doing?It?s not this, it?s not that. I see painting as its own language, much like music is its own language. When you listen to a symphony, (in my opinion) you don?t ask ?well what does it mean.? It explains itself through its own medium. I see painting like jazz. It is what it is. It doesn?t need any other explanation to exist. 

P: What is Soft Machine, how did it come about? 

KG: It started when someone asked me for a pink painting. I said ?Pink, are you crazy? I don?t do pink,? but then I tried it. I like the color. Certain shades are more buttery, softer, others harder. The work began to appear much more figurative, organic, and feminine. I started thinking about The Soft Machine by Burrows and how he would ride a stream of consciousness and cut it up into little pieces and glue it back together, creating something totally different. I think that is how I work as well. One thing feeds off the other. 

P: What do you want the audience to leave with after the show? 

KG: I?d like them to leave perplexed. I like people to look at the work and enjoy it and not really know why. I don?t want people just looking at the work and think it?ll look good on my wall, but I do want them to really enjoy the work. 

P: In what ways are you trying to change the way people look at art? 

KG: When you think about realism, it doesn?t matter how hard it is to do, it is so easy to digest. It?s a face or a mountain. I see no value in the easy digestibility whatsoever. I can admire realism for the skill, but the painting is empty to me. When I see a really good abstraction, something like Cy Twombly or Robert Motherwell it really fills me up. If you?re asking what the painting means then you?re asking the wrong questions. You should enjoy it on its own level. When an artwork works, it works on its own terms. I want people to view the work as its own language.