Don Djerassi Dalmacio's Memento Mori Doesn't Do Small Talk

BY MADS BAJARIAS | The fascinating thing about Don Djerassi Dalmacio's "Hollow Man" exhibited at blanc is how it grows on the viewer. That I didn't realize right away that it was a skull made the impact all the more forceful. What with all the rubbish ephemera that we surround ourselves with, I guess it's good to be reminded once in a while about what awaits us all in the end (no, not a hot bath). The hyper-commodified culture is so tied with youth-worship and shiny happy people that oftentimes we forget that the grave awaits. Nowadays, skull images form some sort of cutesy background pattern and adorn everything from tough guy decal tats to pink school bags for kids. Skull images have become sort of Hello Kittenized. Death's head as kawaii. Dalamacio avoids that—his memento mori isn't puerile. It doesn't try to dazzle or joke around. There is no facile posturing or over-the-top preaching. It just appears slowly out of the debris to observe us. We are in its über-cool grip.

Power Corrupts, Then We End Up in the Slaughterhouse

BY MADS BAJARIAS | In Don Djerassi Dalmacio's painting "Resurfaced," we get the oft-repeated image of the powerful and remote icon. A patrician. A man of consequence. The mogul. Solidly-built and granite-like. But the benevolent aura of power that figured in all official portraits of strongmen in the past is now gone. One of the most painful lessons of the 20th century is how men of power could just be as tormented and doubt-filled as the rest of us. There is no knowing for sure who they are and where their intentions lie. What is clear here is the sense of disillusionment. Dalmacio's isn't an original idea, but it bears a message that needs repeating on the transitory and uncertain nature of power.

Despite the banal title, "Ride to Paradise" (there is something cartoonish and hokey about the word "paradise" which doesn't suit the overall elusiveness presented in the work), this painting shares the same concerns as "Resurfaced": The always shifting forces at work that stymie our puny efforts at understanding the world. We are cut off. We might as well get cozy to the idea that we are all impenetrable.

There is nothing uncertain about "After the Inspection," Dalmacio's version of a gutted farm animal--another familiar 20th century trope. Francis Bacon have mined this vein to disturbing effect and the socialist workers' propaganda films have perfected the We Are All Cattle vision of the worker under capitalism. I find the word "FRESH" on the bottom of the painting is tad unnecessary.

Don Djerassi Dalmacio held his first show at blanc art space last January.