Ruth Gonzales & Lorien Suárez-Kanerva: The Embrace of Nature

Eric Minh Swenson Art Films: Ruth Gonzales & Lorien Suárez Kanerva, The Embrace of Nature Exhibition Curator Narration by Peter Frank.

By CARON G. RAND December 13, 2023 

The Embrace of Nature is a delicious adagio hug, a visual duet between Ruth Gonzales and Lorien Suarez-Kanerva curated and conducted by the witty word wizard Peter Frank and his maestro baton at Art Space 349 in Palm Desert.

Frank bouquets Gonzales’ muted brushes, a painterly quest in obscuring details, with Suarez-Kanerva’s bold outlining of colorful strokes. Subtle, subliminal, ambient notes versus distinct, discernible, eloquent arias ping-ponging delightfully between two walls of visual sound. Envision soft, muted lovers’ hums versus hard-edged hues of Rockstar screams.

Lorien Suárez-Kanerva Wheel within a Wheel 129, mixed media on 60” x 60” canvas, 2023

It’s an elongated space of pauses and crescendos. A fertile valley of sensual arousal, muffled desires, an eyeful of foreplay, excitement, plateaus, orgasmic reveals, and natural, vigorous resolutions. Geometry is exposed and obscured as the long camera lens goes in and out of focus, enticing hypnotic rhythms. 

Frank mentioned that it’s no easy task to curate two stylistically differing intonations as I praised his discerning eye based on the divining placement. But as he shared, if a work wants to repartee with another one at a distance, it most certainly will, voicing its own unique dialogue. 

Ruth Gonzales Chakra Sun, raw pigments & oil on 72” x 52” canvas, 2023

Gonzales veils her imagery as if a stallion galloping by in a blur on a sandy beach with trees, branches and a variety of visages intertwined, blending gestural lines and colors, staccatos breaking solemn silences.

A dusty prayer rises from worn gravel, biting Gonzales’ canvases. A push-pull of strident versus subtle stanzas, navigating nature and the natural while desiring nirvana in the midst of nerve-wracking pollution and dissolution. Is it a futile exercise accessing divine melodies through a fused infantile fontanelle?

Lorien Suárez-Kanerva, Superbloom, gouache & watercolor on 40” x 60” paper, 2023 

Suarez-Kanerva unabashedly embraces nature’s spiritual coding, celebrating details in her sonata. Her unfurling palette and shapes reflect her curiosity and transparency, solving nature’s equations, drumming divine metaphors where blossoms answer. A floral puzzle of vibrational singing bowls or circles seeded in hidden sacred geometry. 

Puffy seeds Blowin’ in the Wind from diaphanous fractal dandelions inspire Suarez-Kanerva to upcycle metal shavings onto canvases as glistening metallic seeds, embracing the artistry and accessibility of foreign matter within faceted organic nature.

A Pyramid, erect geometry, an ancient burial structure towering over sands of time represents the strongest resilient shape, birthing a fantastical river of abundant brilliant florals symbolizing the eternal circle of life and the ultimate embrace of nature via Suarez-Kanerva’s spellbinding brush. 

Ruth Gonzales & Lorien Suárez-Kanerva: The Embrace of Nature at Art Space 349, Palm Desert is on view through January 20, 2024. WM