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Danilo De los Santos

in lithography, murals and material’s typology, while        but from the point of view of the instinctive spirituality.
teaching at La Vega’s Fine Arts School, at the Univer-       In this sense, he starts to become the biographer recreat-
sidad Central del Este ‘Art School and the National          ing the Obando’s era city.
School from which she graduated. In the 1970’s decade
she exhibit in collectives and held, later on, an individ-   Alberto Bass. (Santo Domingo, 1949). He started
ual. In 1975 she is one of the exhibitors at «Dominican
Art and Woman Today - An Homage to Celeste Woss y            studies at The Fine Arts National School, and contin-
Gil,» showing and seminar.                                   ued at the Art Students League de Nueva York, where
                                                             he resides since 1967 through 1971. In that city he regis-
     «The Cord’s House,» acrylic/canvas, 36x60 inch., 1978.  ters his first individual showing. Back to his hometown
The painting focus is the facade’s recreation in yellow      he holds other exhibitions in solitary, and created the
vintage tones, framed by San Francisco’s cord, composed      «Grupo Atlante,» been its leader and theoretician. With
by a lowered arch, festooned with the characteristic         changing realistic discourses, his path from objectivity
pearls from the «Catholic Monarchs» period. The draw-        to the social content leads him to the hyper-realism,
ing steadily precise the broad horizontal cord with knots    been its national main exponent with followers of di-
and vertical drapes over two helmets, the arcade and the     verse degrees of influence.
door slightly defining the bricks pave.
                                                                 «Little House,» mix/canvas, 70x75 cm., 1978. With his
José Cestero. (Santo Domingo, 1937). He had pictorial        hyper-realistic language, the painter shows a neighbour-
                                                             hood house facade, with vertical and horizontals, lights
notions when his father took him to see Yoryi Morel, then    and shadows balanced composition. Painted with a viv-
the Principal at the Fine Arts National School, in 1950.     id chromatic tone, characteristic of a local house made
There he studies until 1954. Afterwards he travels to the    of wood, zinc, showing a cement gallery with decora-
United States, working at a New York’s public library and    tive blocks. A spontaneous garden completes the urban
attending for a summer the «Mill Cooper School.» His         popular stamp and its socioeconomic conditions.
relationship with painters influences his creative adven-
ture, marked beforehand by José Gausachs, Eligio Pichar-     Yoryi Morel.
do, José Fulop and Gilberto Hernández Ortega. Middle         Anthology of the Dominican
of the 1960s he is back in the Dominican capital and         Being: Yoryi Morel. 1969-1979
hold his first individual showing in 1966. His discourse
is active, dynamic, fluctuating, with certain expressionist      In «El Caribe» newspaper (March 1st, 1969) the critic
narrative, according to the critic Manuel Valldeperes (El    Manuel Valldeperes escribió: «To say that Yoryi Morel is,
Caribe, March 26, 1966). Then, he returns to the U.S.        strictly, a Dominican painter, is to stop short into the superfi-
and afterwards lives in Mexico. In his record, the awards    cial or anecdotal. He is an artist who has never fooled himself,
obtained at the Eduardo León Jimenez 1964 and 1968           who has painted whatever he wants, however he pleases, ac-
editions. Once again, he returns back to his native city in  cording to his sensibility and his soul nakedness. His work in,
the second half of the 1970s. Raised in Santo Domingo’s      general, deals with themes in line, due to his appeal, his special
ancient city quarter and port, the painter knows by mem-     sensibility like, for instance, the Cibao’s characters and land-
ory its streets, buildings and squares related to the colo-  scapes he paints with strength and furthermore, with loyalty. In
nial centuries. But he doesn’t copy with a realistic view    this paintings there is not the picturesque but the pictorial. A
the surroundings of his ancient and singular spatiality

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