Artist Spotlight: Damon Reinagle - Hidden Agendas

TAG Gallery presents Hidden Agendas, a series of works by painter Damon Reinagle. Reinagle has been a surreal aficionado, with admiration for the dream-like vistas of Marc Chagall and Salvador Dali. This coupled with his love for the magical swirling colors and imagery of Yoshitaka Amano, has inspired Damon to explore patterns and symbols that evoke decadence and decay, but at the same, joy and hopefulness.

With his doll head series, Reinagle depicts his characters with a classical feel as though the porcelain-like portraits are ageless, yet fragile in nature. Often set against crumbling, depleted architectural facades, the heads suggest that there may be a silver lining after all, with a delicate butterfly or hummingbird about.

Reinagle’s use of a heart as both a romantic symbol as well as a negative shape emerging from tangled thorns, presents the viewer with the dichotomy of good versus evil, growth versus decay. The heart as a suspended mass of molten lava begs the questions, how sustainable is our planet? Will the delicate balance of survival continue to be threatened by man’s greed for materialism or will he wake up to the warnings of over population, climate change and lack of potable water?

The suspended lava heart, the fragile doll heads and the recurring theme of fish out water, all echo nature’s vulnerability to the hidden agendas of humanity.

The show runs through November 17.
Artist Talk: Saturday, November 10th, 3 PM