Sky predominates in the latest work by Ramon Ramirez. Like an overture to a great movie or ballet, it sets the mood and hints at what Ramirez is trying to tell us. For us to hear, we need to see beyond that sky in each work to understand that these pieces are not about the cityscapes we see. They are beyond seeing…and into experiencing.
The use of oils on canvas is considered ill-advised today as artists rush to finish as many works as they can as quickly as possible. Ramirez returned to oils in order to take his time in developing not only those skies and those structures below, but so that we too may contemplate the moment when we can reflect on where we have been and where we are going. Equally, this work is not about the constructed buildings that appear in the lower third of the canvas, which Ramirez as a trained architect is more than capable of drafting. Instead, the structures serve as the walls that keep one from gazing up and beyond our daily lives, often until our days are nearly done and it is too late to turn back. Their flatness against the canvas allows us to see past the structures and those skies.
In the six works that comprise this series, Ramirez is showing us how we can make negative space the focus, if we let it. Here, it is the space in between the sky and the buildings and the palms. It is the space where the intellectual in conceptualism and the most spiritual in Zen quietly meet. It pulls us with a special gravitas that compels one to wonder where (s)he is ultimately headed.
By omitting the cityscape in They Came to Watch Us Fall, Ramirez is taking this vector to its final point in the hope that we will take that moment we need to see what we might become if we are not careful. The palms are already ghosts—sometimes we already are—lamenting at the end of life, but now knowing why. Ramirez is gently warning us against this proclivity in the human condition.
These contemplative works do not rely on metaphor or devise. They are straight forward if we only take that second to stop and look, listen and experience our existential selves. Can we take it? Yes, we can. Thanks Ramon!
̶ Armando Durón