Latin American painter Danuel Mendez has painted a series called "Lost in the woods." The work features small-scale figures lost in a dense and psychological abstract wilderness. The works are colorful, bombastic, expressionistic. These acrylic on canvas works are a metaphor for immigration, adaptation, and self-actualization. The painter was born in 1987 in Cuba. He now lives in Miami.

Result #1

In the past year, he has moved to Los Angeles and has begun to paint paintings that combine his native hues with elements of European art. His approach to color is an interesting fusion of the Spanish-American cultures of the Caribbean, where he has spent most of his life. His paintings are colorful and witty, with references to Spanish-American myth and to popular culture. His work provides a refreshing introduction to this interesting new artistic scene.

Result #2

The title of this show was The Forest: Solitude of the Gods, and it was composed of seven canvases, all from 1987. The majority of the canvases are nude, with few women. These figures are solitary and largely solitary. In one, a single figure is silhouetted against a black background in a darkened forest, watching a shadowy figure from afar. In another, two figures, one standing, one standing, are made of separate layers of white acrylic paint. The difference in quality is striking, and the paints impart a slightly organic quality that seems to be derived from the materials on which the figures are based.The paintings were hung with frames that formed the background. The paintings were displayed in a natural setting, but they couldnt be completely viewed from the front. The photographs were to be stored, the paintings couldn't be sold. Their beauty lies in their hidden connection to a metaphysical world of the mysterious and divine. They can be understood as a direct direct reflection on the human condition, a sacred mystery. The figures, some large, some smaller, have symbolic status. They are sacred in nature, as well as in religious and mythological beliefs. The headless, or missing, figures are viewed as a point of union with the divine. The paintings are like scenes from the subconscious of the artist. They are spiritually precious, mystical, and personal.

Result #3

After his flight from the civil war in Cuba, he moved to Miami and began to paint small, intimate portraits of people who have experienced hardships and disappointments, but whose eyes are not so big. At the same time, he is one of the few Cubans who have stayed in the US and have made paintings of his family and friends.

Result #4

Latin American painter Danuel Mendez has painted a series called "Lost in the woods." The work features small-scale figures lost in a dense and psychological abstract wilderness. The works are colorful, bombastic, expressionistic. These acrylic on canvas works are a metaphor for immigration, adaptation, and self-actualization. The painter was born in 1987 in Cuba. He now lives in Miami. ___________ One has the feeling that we are finding out what weve been looking for all along. It is as if these are the work of the right mind, the young mind, who knew we had to get out of the old world. We shouldnt have been surprised when we found out we were to blame for all of this, because there was no way to get out of the old world.In the old world there was always an urban myth, as the work of the oppressed, and only one of the many works by the Negroes that are not in the museum collections. The ones by blacks are scarce, too often they are stolen from the museums and sold as souvenirs, as if souvenirs of the black race. The problem was always the myth, which was to be destroyed. So the problem is not the museum, but rather the myth-makers who want to give the myth the legitimacy of an art object. The myth-maker is always being seduced by the myth that he must use it to legitimize himself as an artist. The myth-makers prefer to talk about the myths that they create for the myth. Many of the myth-makers are artists, and the myths that are taught are those of the artists.What does it mean that there is no myth, no one can tell a story from a myth? How could there be a myth if we cannot tell a story from our own experience? This question is not only about an idea, but about a certain way of thinking, a certain way of feeling. My experience is that it is the painters who have invented the myths for themselves, that they are the ones who will be the masters of the next century. But who is really the master? To all those who want to escape to the world of abstract painting, to escape to the abstract imaginary space, or to escape to a place where the past is not present, we need help.

Result #5

Latin American painter Danuel Mendez has painted a series called "Lost in the woods." The work features small-scale figures lost in a dense and psychological abstract wilderness. The works are colorful, bombastic, expressionistic. These acrylic on canvas works are a metaphor for immigration, adaptation, and self-actualization. The painter was born in 1987 in Cuba. He now lives in Miami. Samba is the title of an article in the new Spanish language magazine La Jornada. According to the article, the word comes from the verb kamúca, which translates literally as soul, which the artist uses to describe the true soul. This is how the painting expresses the deepest, most intimate, and most spiritual quality of human existence, for the soul is a natural phenomenon that exists in the world, in the air, and in the water, which are constantly in flux and can neither be saved nor reproduced.While these acrylic on canvas works were meant to signify the spiritual nature of man, they also refer to our migrations and to the results of our actions and environments. In this work, the artist flips the metaphor from a spiritual, nationalistic, and cultural context into a personal, domestic one. It is as if the ghosts of the past—those of Cuba, of the United States, of the Spanish-speaking world—were still haunting the present. The ghosts of the past were our mythological ancestors. The ghosts of the present are the ghosts of our ancestors. We can trace the origin of these ghosts to an unlimited number of places and experiences. The imagery in this painting—the ghosts of the past and of the present—can be found in the myths, the stories, and the icons that were brought into the new world.The works in the show were accompanied by texts that argued against the violence of migration. They showed that migration in the modern era has resulted in economic hardship for many people, a state of scarcity and inane labor. But migration is also an emotional process, an emotional response to the homeland. The ghosts of migration are also the ghosts of a dead loved one: the ghost of the soul, the phantom of fate.Mendezs paintings are made of colored acrylic paint on canvas, and the paint itself is applied in a highly refined way. This shows title alludes to the myth of the rebirth of Samba.