SHOUTING OUT EMOTIONS
by TIBOR PAPP of Papp Gallery, N. Y.
Somewhere between eastern philosophy, voodoo, and ancient Maya mythology,
hope and the deep sorrow of those who lost their roots, razor sharp simplicity and
dream like mystique, openness and secrecy, joy and agony, a high -speed chase and tranquility, surprised and satisfied, curious yet, somehow knowing what is about to come , washed away back to the long forgotten world of my childhood,
excited but still in control, that is how I felt encountering the work of Ivan Brens.
Influenced by Picasso, Kolwitz, Dekooning and Guayasamin, leaving his native Dominican Republic a decade ago and trying his luck in the United States, Ivan Brens at the age of 29 is a fully grown artist, giving us lessons in compassion, crying out, shouting emotions straight into the most hidden and cautiously guarded corners of our minds without saying a single word. Ivan Brens shouts, cries out his emotions away.
Catching in a flash the "Stop, so far" black and white etching, and I am reading the life of a sitting figure with knees pulled up to the chin and the palm of the left hand uncovering the past and the future in a single and straight forward yet unobtrusive gesture. I have never seen it before, but I felt it many times looking at you walking down the street, or while searching through my memories.
The gray " Concrete Jungle" captures the souls of the Maya kings and their victims sacrificed in bloody rituals, and the bare existence of millions running their everyday rat race in Mexico city, New York or Chicago at the same time. All are screaming out in pain and joy, agony and ecstasy and this would not be a great surprise but their mouths are closed.
"The future, Cyber Love , Cyber Pain, The Kiss", I see them for the first time, but I know them well. A fraction of a second is enough to discover all what is inside. All what is inside Ivan Brens, inside me , inside you.