By “We’re losing culture and society to representation,” said senior art major Maximillian Piras, when asked about his exhibit, titled “A Monolith Assumed,” now on display in the Dutzi Gallery at Cal State Long Beach.
The collection was inspired by an essay titled “Society of the Spectacle” by Guy Debord, who suggested that the authentic social life has been replace by representation. Debord’s “Society of the Spectacle” also inspired Piras to write his own essay that is also on display in the gallery with his paintings.
“Its my first series of paintings,” Piras said. “I’m trying to figure out what style I’m going to pursue and in finding my style I tried everything.”
Piras chose a collection of paintings that portray the way in which people are seeing representation and taking it in place of reality. The 13 paintings took a total of five months to create.
The paintings show a lot of texture in each piece and the colors chosen for each painting were strong, vibrant and laid on thick. The pieces on display are all different in style but show a similar technique that the artist uses repetitively. Piras tried a different style in each of his paintings, like minimalism, distorted portraits and formal autonomy.
The largest piece is an image of a man’s face, accompanied by a dog in an astronaut suit, thumbtacked to the wall of the Dutzi Gallery. Piras said the image was originally a hand-drawn palm sized image that he later enlarged. The piece was created to be a large presence with temporary pieces.
“I wanted to build something larger-than-life through temporary pieces,” Piras said. “I expanded the small image through technology.”
As well, his series of seven Crucifixions were created with references to renowned artists and styles. Each painting was a representation of a cross composed of either lines on a solid background, or a man drawn into a traffic light in an ur ban setting.
“It’s meant to go into history, represent reality. [They are] counterpoints to realism,” said Piras. “I want to represent reality through different styles of paintings.”
The exhibit is also host to portraits. One of the pictures is a close-up of a woman’s face. The image spans four canvases that are put up out of order. The woman’s eye and forehead is in the first two quadrants, followed by the woman’s cheek, mouth and chin in the next quadrants.
The other portrait is a distorted image of a man, whose eyes are looking to the left side of the painting, and his mouth and lower half facing the right side. Piras was trying to convey a more realistic tone by making the portraits modern and less antiquated by morphing two perspectives into one.
“These pieces were about taking a portrait and trying to give it some presence,” Piras said. “Portraits started to become obsolete. They used to be images that we relied on for reality.”
Piras hopes that people chime in and tell him what they think about his work. Through his art, he explores the idea that the majority of our culture is a representation of how we want to be seen and not what we really are. He wants people to ponder the thought of what will happen next and what it means for our future if we continue to take representations as truth.
“I tried to think of a conclusion to the idea,” Piras said. “The most valuable thing would be to open it up.”
According to Piras, his goal with this exhibit is to bring in as many viewers as possible. He welcomes people who want to take his paintings and dig deep into the meaning of each image and the representation of reality in every painting. As well, he invites who simply think something is pretty to look at. He said it’s more humanistic that way.
Piras’ exhibit will be on display until Oct. 27 from noon to 5 p.m. Sunday through Thursday.
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