Joshua L. vs. Ricardo M.

Preface
I would like to make note that although I have chosen to include what could sometimes be interrupted as a humorous tone to my review of Ricardo’s work, in no way am I belittling the assignment or making light of the hard work that Ricardo has done. I feel that humor allows me to be vulnerable by sharing my true opinion about a matter, while remaining protected from my own self doubt.

Joshua L. vs. Ricardo M.
This beautiful baby girl does not belong in this family. As a product of her father’s drunken love affair, she will grow up resented by her mother, forgotten by her father, and ignored by her brother. Every time her mother looks at her, she will see the unfaithfulness of her husband, a constant reminder of her own desire to be needed but never feeling wanted. Within this image there lies a dark look at the family façade, built upon unfaithfulness, deceit, and forgotten dreams. Too often the young are raised in a situation they cannot change, completely dependent upon those who wished they were never born, lacking the necessary tools they will need to be emotionally strong in a world that can be so cold.

My first thought upon viewing Ricardo’s work was, “these are goddamn owl people!” After the initial shock of absurdity passed I began my surgical dissection of his print. Perhaps the objective (or as close to objective as I can be) qualities of this piece will help me gain knowledge into its deeper meaning? Here before me is a three layer screen print: white, blue, and black. There are four figures, positioned in a way that reminds me of a pretty normal family photograph. The central figure has a face that is printed in half tones dots, giving it a more realistic appearance as compared to the hand drawn faces of the three surrounding figures. Not only is it the half tone dots that create a more realistic look to the central figure, but also there is the fact that the three surrounding figures heads are lacking the qualities of normal human faces, in actuality they look like owls. It seems to me by the contrast in size (they are much bigger) that the three surrounding figures are much older than the central figure, who is most defiantly a baby girl (she has a little frilly baby dress on.) Another important quality to note would be that the time period in which the clothes the figures are dressed in appears to be from anywhere between the 18th century to the early 20th century (I’m not quite up to date on historical fashion.)

Indeed I made quite a few radical claims in my opening statement, but here are the reasons I arrived at that conclusion. First and foremost, there is no natural way that this child could be the product of sexual relations between Mr. and Mrs. Owl; she doesn’t look like them at all. Therefore, it is my belief that said baby is the love child of one of Mr. Owls late night play dates. Now, you may say, “Well, J. Clark LeMoine, she simply could be adopted,” but consider the way Mrs. Owl is glaring at the child. She is certainly not happy about this “little” addition to her family. This is where the time period of the clothing worn in the print gains some importance. In modern society, woman supposedly have more equal rights than ever before (although I believe there is still heavy discrimination,) but in many social settings decades ago, the women of the family did not have as much say over family matters as the men. It seemed in especially religious groups, woman were to remain quiet, even if they were not being treated equally with the men. If a woman cheated on her husband, there was hell to pay, but if a man was unfaithful, it seemed to not be as major a discrepancy as the former. Years of oppression made it falsely appropriate for men to have more power than women. Maybe Mrs. Owl was frightened to speak out on the infidelity of her husband? Perhaps Mrs. Owl feared that if she left she could not make it on her own, or that her reputation would be tarnished, as if somehow her husband’s infidelity was her fault, so she kept her mouth shut while becoming bitter towards this baby girl, and her hubby. Perhaps this whole deal made Mrs. Owl lack the motivation to pass on the proper way to be a lady to her not quite daughter, and this could cause future problems for this girl, or maybe not?

Now take a look a Mr. Owl’s scotch glazed gaze. He’s to wasted to even notice this little “mishap” he brought into the world (by the way, the Owl’s have custody of the baby girl because her real mother died during childbirth.) Honestly, he has never been a good husband to Mrs. Owl, in fact the only reason they wed is because she was pregnant with their son (in the background.) He now resents getting married at such a young age, and coupled with the beginning of his mid-life crisis, he feels that it is his right to live his sinful lifestyle on the weekends, because what’s Mrs. Owl going to say about it anyway, he’s the man of the house. Mr. Owl is a prime example of a deadbeat father, that monocle of his isn’t fooling anyone. He doesn’t deserve another minute of our time.

Finally there’s that one in the back. Owl Junior had a descent childhood. Mother and Father had their share of arguments, but they always played with him and gave him plenty of attention. That all changed the day Mom and Dad had the biggest fight he had ever heard or seen! Suddenly he had a new baby sister, and he never even knew Mom was pregnant! He stopped receiving all the attention, and even though he didn’t really see that attention being given to his baby sister instead, he still was mad at her because everything changed when she arrived. He tried to play with her once, but she just cried the whole time. So now, as you can see in the print, he just gets stoned all the time and refuses to deal with reality.

Since Ricardo is relatively new to the print program, I don’t know what to expect from him yet as I haven’t seen enough work by him to really get a feel for what moves and motivates him. I sat down with this piece for quite some time, I even took it home with me, and I must say the only idea that reoccurred in my mind was that one of these things is not like the others. That is the strongest theme that I read from this piece, that there is a huge difference between the age and race of the child and the other figures. While the difference doesn’t seem to be overtly cruel or intimidating towards the child, I am left feeling uncomfortable about the child’s role with the others. I believe it is the vintage depiction of the “people” that makes me feel like something sinister is to take place.

I am still very confused by the choice to depict the three surrounding figures to the child as cartoonish creatures. I really haven’t the slightest idea about whether there is to be a deeper purpose to their look, or if it is just a style choice intended to be creative. Because I know that Ricardo is strongly rooted in his Puerto Rican heritage, I asked myself if somehow these characters would mean something more to me if I too knew more about Puerto Rican culture, and I still believe that that may be the case. If this is the case, I believe that more information is needed to help the viewer find some kind of connection to these oddly depicted beings. If the whole image was of cartoons, say if the child was a cartoon also, I wonder what may happen, and vice versa. I’m not sure the seriousness that the vintage photograph implies coexists well with the cartoon figures, so maybe all of the faces should have been printed in halftones as well.

Honestly I don’t find it to be a huge deal, but for the sake of criticism, the registration of the layers could use a little touching up.

Peace in the Middle East,
J.C.L