Open curtain, cue the strokes dancing along the lines of paint tracing a cultural timeframe. Momentous artist Jeff T. Dizon, alumnus of the University of the Philippines, paints history limning rich kabuki culture. Kabuki, referred to as “the art of singing and dancing, is a Japanese traditional theater.
Distinguished for its stylistic dramatization with ornate makeup and stage production, kabuki inspires Dizon’s craft since the artist believes the major part of the artwork is about their life. Kabuki has underlying definitions; the theatricals are only the surface of a denser art form. Seeing between the lines is the focal point of Dizon’s KABUKI, its multi-layered appearance concealing life — notably history — beneath fluid framing. Detailed patterns interconnect with limited colors, an expressionist mode that the artist is renowned for. In spite of the paintings’ complexity, it garners much adoration due to neatly cut themes hidden from glimpse. Just forty percent of the artwork is available in bare overlook, speaks Dizon. And the kabuki, with flair layering the true story of time, is the perfect catalyzer for his exhibition.
Seen on the prints are sharp lines of red, blue, white, and green, among others, on black and gray solids conjoined by layered sets through careful adjacency of varying shapes. The layering is maneuvered on momentum, the defined lacing and pigments correspond lithography, collagraph, monotype, aquatint, plus Japanese print composition ukiyo-ē. Dizon’s meticulous muse elicit the flamboyantly moody makeup and costume of the kabuki — his mounded figures coalescing a bevy of vibes intended for feeling by looking.
The Palette of Peculiarity
Kabuki is defined "out of the ordinary" hence the peculiar look plus presentation. Its sublime oddities nurture the artworks. Utilizing masking technique, the artist gradually arranges ponderous layers of paint and drawings. His attentive style displays whimsical notions of the classic Japanese art form. The "masks" or outlines dutifully sprawled on the pieces exalt bizarre, sophisticated splendor.
Facial expressions illustrated by Dizon resemble kabuki actors (traditionally women; male performers flock the art eventually) mimicking states of extremes from drunk to romance, and mildness to overwhelming bravado. Tinges in the artwork sample kumadori, the kabuki stage makeup. Each color signifies certain aura on the character's persona. Dizon elaborates its artistic magnitude, spreading the tones across the whole pictures from the facial language to the slickly figured background and frames. He manipulates these tones for maximum visual representation of demeanors. “Kabuki #7” flaunts two women; the central female having a red string ribboned on her hair. From the kabuki notes, red lines symbolize passion, heroism, and righteousness. The visibly more efflorescent “Kabuki Dancers” are detailed with blue, yellow, green plus orange. Blue command evil; yellow relays optimism; green strokes signal the other- worldly; and orange scream flamboyance and energy. The women’s faces are vivified in white and pink, vignettes of angelic and innocence apiece. Meshing the palettes induce odd sensibilities in a solo scene: wide expressions fine-tuned by Dizon for one operatically temperamental absorption.
History Without a Pause
The artist spins towards history, his impassioned strokes supplying the kabuki's longevity onto his pictures. In the 17th century, the traditional theater has begun in Edo (now Tokyo). The 18th Century has introduced impressive technical designs: revolving platforms and doors, traps, then advanced techniques like the main actor's sudden appearance and disappearance on stage. KABUKI depicts the beguiling wit of the play through Dizon’s masterful strokes containing strategic corners and turns, bending to brandish the element of surprise, such as that of the classic theater, upon the gaze: conducting continuity that preserves excitement then commences in a chromatic climax as the full painting shapes into peak emotion — poignancy in copious exposition.
Dizon’s meticulous commitment in his art mirrors the ever-transcendent kabuki tenure. Across eons, the traditional theater retained its classic pizzazz, remaining relevant through its wonder-provoking fashion and presentation. In Dizon’s artwork, he strokes continuously. Fiber-fête “Kabuki #4,” similar to the rest of the series, sees the artist practice freehand lining, layering, and painting without pause for eight hours a day, six days a week. Ergo, kabuki has been staged for the Japanese daily for up to 5 hours, reflecting the artist's zealousness. His devotion to sewing infinitesimal pieces of his picture into a colossal gem symbolizes the never-ending kabuki timeline, from the old age to the post-modern epoch. Dizon’s lines, shapes, and colors are interminable, relating the temporal glow of the Japanese theater. The no-pause art style echoes chūnori ("riding in mid-air"). It is a show technique from the mid-19th century: the actor's costume is hooked to wires while they "fly" overhead. Translated into artwork, Dizon lets his hands "glide" on the canvass flawlessly, flowing until the particulars of the pictures are completed. Without pausing, it synchronizes every element into a single art envibing all sensibilities plus visual impact. Non-stop illustration provides the reality of a sole creation despite sundry details surrounding it. An assemblage of steady receptivity, KABUKI tells history uninterrupted, the layered fibers always flowing a span of ostentatious performances and milestones.
KABUKI are sketched with laces plastered abundantly, so the theater's timeline decorates the massive frame. The prismatic cords are the lineage of the kabuki, connected by Dizon in flawless architecture showing no breakage in its flow, just the infinite passing of ages on Japanese stages.
Elemental Gallery
The major elements of the kabuki are the mie and the kesho. Mie renders the actor's scenic pose, exemplifying their exact characterization; the kesho is the intricate makeup conveying their array of impressions. Furnishing these key elements in his baroque art, Dizon draws characters with a beckoning pose amassed in a defining pause. The personas in the frames present their mie, dramatizing their significance in the kabuki timeline: they are capsules carrying Japanese drama in the contemporary gallery. All the strokes and layered lines are mechanized kesho, the "makeup" dressing the art so it can ooze feelings that move uninterruptedly even at a still. The artists’s exhibition is elemental, the pose of “Kabuki #3” being a riveting silhouette.
Emphatic in the displays are the lines from and returning to the women, highlighting the hanamichi — a projection of a flowery walkway for theatrical entrances and exits during performances. Powering the artist's imagination, he applies the hanamichi pattern to herald extra masks of dramatic paint. Thus, the eyes reckon the stream of a play in a frame.
The artist's masking, drawing, and painting are methods that encapsulate aesthetic plus histrionic aspects from the kabuki where a catch-all trick is termed keren: various revolving traps and doors on theater. Universally translated "playing to the gallery," Dizon paints his personal keren on his art to be exhibited.
A Stage of the Senses
History is perceived in the past. While it was, the story of a period is performed presently. Dizon attempts to reconfigure the perception with the KABUKI wherein art plays history uninterrupted through its extending lines and layered colors: because history is the stage of theatrical remembering for outlining senses from here on.
Images
“Kabuki #7”
JeffTDizon, 2020, acrylic on canvas
C/O Art Circle Gallery
“Kabuki #4” and “Kabuki Dancers”
JeffTDizon, 2020, acrylic on canvas
C/O Art Circle Gallery
Originally published by Art Circle Gallery.
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