Always Darkest Before Dawn

In Mark Nativo’s latest series of oil paintings, Nativo returns to the canvas during a personal winter solstice of sorts—perhaps of the soul.

While the artist is known for his signature monochrome motif, there’s an outright pain and struggle more palpably felt in the dark shades and chaotic tumble of objects and shapes in this particular series. Stemming from what feels like an inescapable domestic and financial strain, these portraits express the artist’s kicked-while-already-down feeling, and the seemingly endless cycle of downtroddenness when there’s trouble on the homefront and basic needs seem far from reach.

As a father raising a differently abled child in an environment that doesn’t fully understand nor readily nurture someone with special needs, Nativo turns to art as a form of self-soothing, and a personal reminder of the newfound strength that the dire situations have forced out of him. While he simultaneously strongly feels a sense of alienation—of feeling like he “neither belongs with the kings and queens, nor the crooks”—Nativo continues to stand next to a proverbial hearth or fire for both warmth and light to last through the night while waiting for the prolonged darkness to finally give way to light.

Like the forlorn jumble of elements in Nativo’s paintings, resolve remains up in the air, suspended in time. But maybe the shapes will fall into place sooner than later, with the possibility of the end in sight serving as a reminder that dawn still eventually breaks, no matter how long the night seems or how much the darkness forces to linger.

-Nikki Ignacio