Tuesday, June 26, 2012

Aaron Delehanty---the devil is in the details

For Aaron's work, that saying is very apt.  That's what drew me to the pieces in the first place.  I really enjoy the details of his pieces, the way I am able to lose myself in them.  Take the larger of the two, shown above, Sounds.  Can't you hear it already from the get go?  The waves pulling you in (have you ever been white water rafting), the rain cutting you with each piercing droplet, pouring down on you, not a pleasant rain, but fierce.   The title is the painting.  You are supposed to hear this piece, about like a synesthesia.  the building in the background is almost a footnote, but it climbs into the sky.  You wish you could board that edifice and escape, but it's so distant.  You wonder how its inhabitants are faring in this awful weather.  You envy them.  you pity them.

In the next piece, Valley, you get the opposite auditory landscape, that is, the absence of sound.  You feel calm, peace, at ease with those birds that fly away from whatever disturbed them or are they circling something of interest?  there's always a story to find, to unfold.  The industrial is always in conflict with the natural in Aaron's works.  Which wins and which loses out?  Unfortunately, for us brilliant humans, you can see the marks we've left in the landscape, both in the pastures below, and in the sky above (are those jet trails?)  Perhaps the pity you may feel in the works are for us mortals who know all too well how to destroy, how to "progress".  Maybe we too should be like the rain, be like the crows, and just go with the flow of things, to enjoy what is here, what is ephemeral, instead of trying to capture something we have made up in our minds.  But perhaps I am a hypocrite here.  I, too, am a mere mortal as I collect these works, material goods, as I want to relive these moments, and allow others the same joy that I derive.  Please do.