Much art today is about social politics or personal psychology and experience. Rarely do we encounter contemporary art that is based on philosophy, music, and religious concepts. That is, until one encounters the work of Dan Ramirez. His exhibition at Zolla/Lieberman Gallery in Chicago, titled “Vertical Thoughts,” is a revelation of what a deeply intellectual approach to image making can produce.

        Already known to the Chicago art scene, Ramirez came to the attention of the broader art world decades ago. In 1980, the Art Institute of Chicago purchased nearly six dozen of his prints and drawings and, in 1981, mounted a show in their Prints and Drawings department titled New Etchings by Dan Ramirez in Homage to Oliver Messiaen: 20 Contemplations of the Infant Jesus. I saw that show and was taken by its purity and consistency. One did not have to know the music of Messiaen, or even Christian theology, to be taken by the simplicity, intensity, and mental depth of his abstract imagery.

        Sixty-two years later, the octogenarian Ramirez presents us with an equally intense aesthetic and intellectual experience in this recent exhibition. The decades have infused his images with real world references—the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey, the work of Vera Klement, wood and papyrus textures, and, of course, music (Dan is a jazz bassist). Suggestions of a figure have even appeared in a couple of his pieces in this show.

 

        Much has been written about Ramirez’s use of stacked lines and how they represent language and communication. There is an entire discussion of this aspect of his work in an essay by Buzz Spector in the exhibition catalogue. But, they started with a different purpose. He would use horizontal lines to create an ombré effect in a defined area. That, along with his trapezoidal form, became his signature motif. This can be seen in his aquatint from 1980, I Sleep, but My Heart Keeps Vigil. To this viewer, his use of the gradient from a dark base to a white top suggests the evolution from the carnal to enlightenment.

 

        The ombré motif survives in this latest work in two forms. El Sufrimiento incorporates it as a background the fades from black on the bottom to white at the top and as a stack of graphite marks that gradually get fainter and disappear into the background in the center of the work. The horizontal graphite lines, according to Spector, represent language, or knowledge. It is interesting that they become increasingly indistinct as they are farther away from the base and blend into a white “sky,” the spiritual realm. El Sufrimiento is perhaps the piece that best exemplifies his aesthetic today. It includes collaged papyrus fragments heavily covered with graphite lines that allow the papyrus texture to become prominent. This is in sharp contrast to his early purely abstract work; the reality of materials has become part of Ramirez’s vocabulary.

 

 

        There is a seven-piece series in the exhibition called Vertical Thoughts: Meditation on the Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross. It uses all the motifs seen in El Sufrimiento, but these seven images go beyond the representation of suffering. All with a dark background, they each have a bright slit somewhere in the composition, often containing the dark-to-light ombré gradient. In Meditation on the Seven Last Words…VI, there is a section on the left that reads as a curtain pulled back to reveal an opening. Next to the opening is a stack of the graphite lines making a clean rectangle that can be thought to represent language and/or knowledge—the Word. All the pieces also contain fragments of papyrus that suggest the trunk of a tree. (Tree trunks were a frequent subject in the work of Vera Klement, Ramirez’s professor and mentor at the University of Chicago where he got his MFA.) Here they seem to symbolize the framework of the physical world. The graphite stacks always rest on a log-like piece of papyrus and are framed with at least one vertical piece that feels like a column or a tree trunk. One can then come to the interpretation that the slits are portals to a better, more enlightened world. And to enter that world, one has to forsake the dark, physical world.

 

 

        There is another series in this show, Kosmik Thoth, that is closely related to the Seven Last Words…. It serves as a kind of prologue These works also have black backgrounds, but each has a large swath of papyrus in the background, giving them a warm glow. In addition, they all have several colored shapes. There is a red orb and a blue orb in each, and Kosmik Thoth II, the brightest of the group, has additional orange and blue rectangles, as well as a green orb in the background. Four of the pieces in this series also contain a rectangle that has an ombré gradient going from black at the bottom to white at the top, suggesting a portal to another space, as was seen in the Seven Last Words…. InKosmik Thoth, our physical world is depicted with bright spots of color, tempting us not to leave it for the formless whiteness of the spiritual(?) world. One work, Kosmik Thoth IV, even has the “portal” peeling off the papyrus background, suggesting that it might be a fraud. Strangely, it sits to the right of a large black circle encroaching on the central rectangle filled with graphite lines. Is this symbolizing a black hole?

 

 

        The Q.E.T.: El Pájaro set of four works presents images that are solidly anchored in the real world. Inspired by Messian’s Quartet for the End of Time, and painted on basswood panels, pieces I and II contain large areas of wood grain on which floats a curved form, possibly suggesting a bird in flight. The series stems from another work called Aletheia: El Pájaro (The Bird). Aletheia translates from the Greek to mean truth or reality. Octavio Paz’s poem El Pájaro serves as a significant source of inspiration for all of these works. It and Messian’s piece both address death. Of particular interest are Q.E.T.: El Pájaro III and IV. On the left-hand side of each piece is a shape, painted in a glittery textured grey, that looks like the silhouette of a human figure. Are they ghosts of beings who have passed?

 

 

        Two works in this show, Bariolage I and II, struck me immediately upon seeing them. Bariolage is a French word for a violin bowing technique, but it also can mean medley. To this viewer, these two pieces are hauntingly beautiful. Not quite monochromatic, they have the intimacy of Durer’s The Large Piece of Turf, from 1503, and although totally abstract, the references to the real world are subtle but unmistakable.

 

 

        There is also a group called Aletheia and the Cosmos: An Homage to Olivier Messiaen and his “Visions of the Amen.” It consists of twenty 14 x 11-inch panels arranged in a four by five grid. In this work, Ramirez juxtaposes sections of the score from Messiaen’s piece with elements of his technical vocabulary. As visually striking as the group is, I did not find the juxtaposition particularly successful. To me, it seemed somewhat forced.

        Finally, the exhibition contains five ceramic plaques Ramirez created while in Spain studying with Joan Gardy Artigas. They are charming small works that have introduced him to a medium that is more unpredictable than what he is accustomed to. There is a certain looseness to these ceramic pieces that is not present (yet) in Ramirez’s paintings.

 

 

        Many artists in modern times have continued to use religion as a jumping off point for artistic inspiration. It is often a reference point for some kind of political statement or protest–most famously Andres Serrano’s Immersion (Piss Christ). But, religious imagery can be an affirmation of a particular faith, like some of the work of Marc Chagall or Keith Haring’s Altarpiece: The Life of Christ. A few, such as Mark Rothko’s fourteen paintings for Houston’s Rothko Chapel, represent an affirmation of a more abstract spirituality. Similarly, Dan Ramirez has produced a body of work that explores the transition from the earthly to the spiritual. And, he does it in a way that visually transcends religious doctrine (in this case Roman Catholicism). Ramirez even incorporates relatively contemporary symbols like the previously mentioned monolith from the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. Ultimately, he creates portals to a transcendent world using the ombré technique he originally employed in illustrating the holy trinity in his 1980s works (see I Sleep, but My Heart Keeps Vigil shown above). Finally in his Q.E.T.: El Pájaro series, Ramirez lets in a hint of the human figure, anchoring his aesthetic to the human experience.

 

 

This exhibition was on view from September 8 – October 14, 2023.

Michel Ségard is the Editor in Chief of the New Art Examiner and a former adjunct assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is also the author of numerous exhibition catalog essays.