RANDOLFO ROCHA: BLACK & WHITE
by Eleanor Heartney
by Eleanor Heartney
A word repeated over and over becomes meaningless. So does a word enlarged to mammoth scale. In Randolfo Rocha's elegant geometric paintings, single words are abstracted, streamlined to form interlocking blocks of black and white and turned on their sides in a maneuver that makes them all but unreadable. Does their meaning continue to matter? Are they meant to operate like the subliminal messages once supposedly flashed for a few frames in the middle of commercials or films? Are they clues to the artist's intentions, or are they merely red herrings?
Rocha is admirably reticent on this point, leaving the viewer to determine the answer for him or herself. The words themselves run to short, pithy commonplaces which carry multiple meanings in our culture, among them eat, age, hate, life, lies and hope. These are the kind of words of which soundbites are made, the power words of our public vocabulary. One is reminded that Rocha's work in the past has included some fiercely political paintings which include iconic images of Latin American generals, bomber planes, paper money, Renaissance master pieces and American advertising images. This history would lead us to ascribe political significance to the hidden words.
On the other hand, not all the works in this series exhibit linguistic tendencies. Some of the geometric configurations suggest running stick figures. Others are even more abstract, hinting, in their complex arrangements of black and white rectangles, at maps, floor plans or mazes. This is true even of the word paintings which, hung so that the letters run at a right angle with the floor, suggest white passageways meandering through a black ground. One begins to suspect that the words simply offer Rocha a template for his interweavings of black and white shapes.
Both interpretations seem valid. In fact, it is possible to read a similar meaning into the paintings whether one focuses on form or overt content. As an aesthetic language, geometry may, through reliance on symmetry and regularity, convey a message of stability and static order. Or, by emphasizing imbalance and asymmetry, it may evoke a sense of dynamism and instability. Rocha uses geometry to strike a balance between these two modes. One has a sense, looking at one of his compositions, that the amount of surface devoted to black and white areas is roughly equal. By limiting himself to horizontal and vertical shapes and working with bands of black or white which appear to be about the same width, Rocha sets up an initial impression of regularity. Closer examination, however, upsets these expectations. The bands in fact may vary slightly in width, black and white shapes which appear to be identical turn out to vary subtlely, and it quickly becomes clear that this is an intuitive, rather than mechanically generated geometry. A further conflict between order and irregularity is played out on the painting's surface. White areas have a smooth finish while black ones are painted with broad systematic strokes. This tension between the appearance of stability and an under stated irregularity seems very much in sync with the way that the words function in the paintings. Simple, basic words turn out to be far more ambiguous than they originally appear. This is true both in terms of their connotations (Is Age a mark of respect or obsolescence? Does Eat conjure images of obesity or prosperity?) and even their forms.
Because of the skillful way that Rocha weaves these words out of both black and white shapes, some can have multiple readings. Shot, for instance, might also be seen as Shit. The final result of all these ambiguities is to emphasize a theme of quiet subversion. But while pondering these paradoxes, it would be a mistake to forget that, whatever their political underpinnings, these compositions also represent a concept of beauty which derives from the paring away of all extraneous elements. Rocha has expressed his admiration for Minimalism, especially the work of Ellsworth Kelly. His work can be seen as a homage to the reductive tendency in art. Banishing color, overlapping forms, even diagnonals, Rocha leaves behind the last vestiges of representation. Negative and positive space are balanced in a deftly controlled way, so that the eye may shift effortlessly from one gestalt to another.
And yet - those words quietly usher back into these works the hints of the world which their format otherwise excises. This creates a provocative tension between the anti-illusionistic philosophy of classic Minimalism and Rocha's evident desire to communicate on the symbolic level. This seems in keeping with the ongoing reevaluation of Minimalism which questions whether even the most obdurate form can be viewed solely in material terms.
Thus, as Rocha's paintings amply demonstrate, simplifying a composition down to the most basic forms and colors does not necessarily reduce its complexity. Purity, he suggests, has a richness all its own.
