Epic in subject matter and scale, On Sacred Ground is a milestone in the career of Arturo Sanchez Jr. After building his reputation on mirror-and-canvas works, Sanchez experiments with clear-cast polyurethane resin — a material that expands the possibilities of collaging.

The basic technique is the same: cut outs collected from various print media are sorted, arranged, pasted and painted to produce a single image. For On Sacred Ground, Sanchez focuses on the ideas of destruction and beauty, and the clash of opposites. “Beauty can come from the strangest of places, from the most horrific events,” he says.

Contorted bodies set against atmospheric backgrounds possess the “exaggerated motion” and tense drama of a Baroque painting, despite maintaining clarity. Resin allows Sanchez to extend the depth of his compositions, imbuing an uncanny three-dimensional appeal to his collages. Individual elements separate from each other, either floating to the surface like a daguerreotype apparition or receding into space. Creating these layers is time-intensive, much more so than a mirror collage or a painting, since Sanchez must wait for each layer to dry before adding another.

Suffice to say that clear-cast polyurethane resin is a complicated and technical medium that requires an artist to know the interactions between printed matter, paint, and a host of other substances (too much hardener can create cracks — or even break an entire piece — too little will turn it into a sticky gel). It is a “one-strike material”: once a layer of resin is poured over the collage, it is done. The process is irreversible. On Sacred Ground, with its softer silhouettes, depth, and dramatic play of light, is a significant achievement for Sanchez, who had to surpass the difficulties of working with the medium. “I’m still struggling to perfect it,” he says, “but the possibilities are endless.”

The arc of Sanchez’s career is driven by his curiosity. The use of shaped plane mirrors in paintings gave way to canvases studded with convex mirrors, both as is and with collages incorporated within their reflective surfaces. This solo exhibition combines techniques that Sanchez displayed in Phenomenal Field, a show mounted in this very same gallery in 2014, which featured resin lamps and a floor piece composed of mirror tiles. What if, Sanchez wondered, he placed his collages within the resin instead of mirrors. Thus On Sacred Ground, his first major outing of resin-based works.

Despite this innovation in materials, On Sacred Ground bears the unmistakable signature of Sanchez. The tension-creating palette remains, as does the immersive quality. The unsettling angst, too, is familiar. This show, according to Sanchez, acknowledges that there is good and evil in all of us. His fascination with the destructive impact of human activities on the environment manifests itself in apocalyptic fire-lit images and smoke-filled chaos and confusion. Supporting these wall works is an installation of seemingly bullet-ridden religious statues that have light emanating from their “wounds.” On Sacred Ground, says Sanchez, is reminder “of the constant fragility and beauty of hum

an life.”

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