Surrealist scenarios full of symbolism and meaning capture the more than 50 works that the CAC, Contemporary Art Center of Málaga exhibits until September 12, 2021. Its author, the Canadian artist Don Bergland (1943, Victoria), presents a great sample of his artistic activity during the last ten years, counting on techniques as varied as pigments on canvas or digital 3D tools.

His intricate landscapes and disturbing characters suggest a secret language, known only to the artist and therefore generates an introspective search and reflection in the viewer who seeks to decipher it.

Numerous symbolic elements -meat, rats, balloons, flowers or lambs, with which it seeks to represent materiality, marginality, childhood, hope and purity respectively- refer to Christianity and the historical periods of the Baroque and Victorian period, Combining with themes such as the nostalgia of the past, the yearning to live in a perfect place or eternity as a concept; having in common all of them the aura of restlessness and mystery that surrounds questions whose answer is diffuse. The aesthetics of the pieces respond to the beginnings of the artist’s career, giving rise to caricature images -of large and expressive eyes- and charged with black humor, as in Compromise (2020). Other of his most emblematic works are Doctrine (2017), Baal (2017), Pontius (2019) and Showdown (2020).

The laureate artist has made a total of more than 250 exhibitions and received more than 80 awards, among which is the pertinently explained here, The Silence of Eternity, curated by Patricia Bueno del Río.

Food for the Eyes.

Text: Beatriz Igea Sanchez.

Photos:Don Bergland/CAC Málaga.

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